RALEIGH — North Carolina Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Bishop (NC-09), Ted Budd (NC-13), Madison Cawthorn (NC-11), and Richard Hudson (NC-08) have signed on as co-sponsors for H.R. 6945, the No Retaining Every Gun In a System That Restricts Your (REGISTRY) Rights Act or No REGISTRY Act for short.
According to the measure’s two-page draft, the main purpose of No Registry is to “amend title 18, United States Code, to discontinue the collection by the Federal Government of firearm transaction records of discontinued firearms businesses, to require the destruction of such already collected records, and for other purposes.”
The measure would require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to delete or remove all existing gun and firearms transactions, the records of which kept by the ATF is apparently creeping towards a billion, according to a Jan. 31 report in the Washington Free Beacon.
The Washington Free Beacon article states that, “While the ATF denies that these records are used to track gun owners, it transfers hard copies of the information into a searchable digital database that it says is used to trace firearms tied to crimes. The ATF reported that 865,787,086 of the records are already in a digital format.”
“The right to keep and bear arms is one of our nation’s most fundamental freedoms,” Hudson said in a press statement. “The proposed registry rule by the Biden administration’s ATF is yet another threat to our Second Amendment. I am proud to co-sponsor the No REGISTRY Rights Act to defend the rights of all law-abiding citizens.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud (TX-27) is cited by the Washington Free Beacon as leading an investigation into the ATF’s apparent gun sales database, which led to the subsequent filing of the No REGISTRY Act, of which Cloud is the lead sponsor.
The measure also would allow firearms sellers and dealers to destroy their records when and if such a business closes down. Under current laws, a licensed gun seller closing down their business is required to turn over all records for the past 20 years to the ATF, which then puts those transaction records into a database.
President Biden’s recent gun law proposals would end the 20-year time period and instead require records for all years a dealer has been in business.
Hudson has signed onto a second firearms-related measure, the Firearm Industry Non-Discrimination (FIND) Act, which was introduced by U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (MI-01).
“Recently, large financial institutions and other corporations have begun to enact policies that have, effectively, restricted access to legal firearms far beyond the scope of current state and federal firearm regulations,” Hudson’s press statement reads. “The FIND Act would address this by preventing any businesses that discriminate against firearm businesses or associations from contracting or subcontracting with the federal government – ensuring that federal funding is not used to further these harmful policies.”
The FIND Act’s description of the restrictive activity by finance institutions and corporations is very similar to former Attorney General Eric Holder’s Operation Chokepoint, whereby banks and lending organizations cut off loans and services to businesses not in line with the ideological positions of the Obama administration. Targeted businesses under Operation Chokepoint included payday lenders and gun sellers.
