Opinion

As the federal government rolls out its sweeping artificial intelligence strategy—ingesting “all government data” into machine learning models—gun owners have every reason to be alarmed.

Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, recently confirmed that “all the government data that the government has is going to be ingested into models” to improve citizen services, including permits, taxes, and healthcare. That’s not just parking passes and passports—that potentially includes firearm transaction records, too.

This raises a red flag for anyone following the ATF’s quiet construction of a digital database of gun owner records—a practice that violates federal law but has continued for years under both Democrat and Republican administrations. Despite clear legal prohibitions against a centralized registry, the ATF currently maintains nearly one billion firearm transaction records, many of them digitized and partially searchable.

The Database That Shouldn’t Exist

According to FOIA responses and internal ATF memos, the Bureau receives millions of out-of-business dealer records every month. These records include sensitive data from ATF Form 4473s—name, address, firearm description, and more. Although ATF claims that this information can’t be searched by name, it’s only because that feature is “disabled”—not deleted. With just a few keystrokes, ATF could turn this passive database into an active weapon against gun owners.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) has gone further, exposing that the ATF has encouraged active FFLs to submit current records voluntarily, even before closing shop, expanding this illegal registry far beyond its already bloated scope

Enter AI: From “Woke Filtering” to Weaponized Data

The Trump administration’s recent executive order aims to prevent “woke AI” in federal procurement. It promises that large language models (LLMs) used by the government will be “ideologically neutral” and “truth-seeking.”

But what about privacy? What about the enforcement of laws like 18 U.S.C. § 926(a)(3), which prohibits the federal government from maintaining a firearms registry?

Nowhere in the policy is there a guarantee that firearms ownership data will be excluded from AI ingestion. No safeguard. No carve-out. Just blind faith that bureaucrats will do the “right thing” with mountains of sensitive information—despite decades of evidence to the contrary.

If firearm transaction records become part of these national AI systems, what’s to stop future administrations—or even foreign actors who compromise the system—from querying this data to locate, target, or harass law-abiding gun owners?

Who Will Hold the Line?

Congress isn’t asleep at the wheel—at least not all of it. In January 2025, Congressman Michael Cloud and Senator Jim Risch reintroduced the No REGISTRY Rights Act, a direct response to the ATF’s illegal stockpiling of gun owner data. The bill would dismantle the ATF’s Out-of-Business Records Imaging System (OBRIS), which currently holds over 920 million firearm transaction records, many of them digitized and indexed for rapid retrieval. Cloud’s investigation into this system, along with a damning report by Gun Owners of America, revealed how easily this database could be misused to build a door-to-door gun confiscation list.

The legislation is refreshingly simple in its goals. First, it requires the complete destruction of the ATF’s existing registry. Second, it allows gun dealers to destroy their records when they go out of business—reversing Biden-era rules that forced permanent retention. And third, it prohibits any federal agency from creating or maintaining a gun registry ever again.

The bill is supported by a coalition of liberty-minded lawmakers and gun rights champions, including GOA, the National Association for Gun Rights, and the NRA. But make no mistake—this fight isn’t over just because President Trump is back in the White House.

The bill still faces resistance in Congress from anti-gun lawmakers and bureaucrats who would rather sweep the registry issue under the rug than deal with it lawfully.

What Can Gun Owners & Advocacy Groups Do?

The only way to force this bill across the finish line is sustained pressure from gun owners across the country. Contact your representatives. Demand passage. The gun registry must not only be defunded—it must be destroyed. And the AI age only raises the stakes. Because if this registry survives, it may not be a human bureaucrat pulling your file—it might be an algorithm doing the government’s dirty work.

• Call for Immediate Deletion: Demand that any AI system built by the federal government be explicitly barred from ingesting or accessing any firearms-related records—whether paper, scanned, or digitized.
• Push for Enforcement of Existing Laws: Congress must enforce 18 U.S.C. § 926(a)(3) and hold the ATF accountable for violating it. Any federal employee found knowingly participating in building a gun registry should face consequences.
• Support REGISTRY Destruction Legislation: The GOA-backed bills are vital. Gun owners should contact their senators and representatives to co-sponsor and support these efforts.
• Demand Transparency: FOIA requests should continue, especially as new AI projects come online. The public deserves to know which data sources are being fed into these models—and whether your gun record is among them.
• Educate and Mobilize: Local and state-level activism remains one of the best tools to apply pressure upward. Host town halls, educate other gun owners, and make sure this issue doesn’t fly under the radar.

The fusion of unchecked artificial intelligence with illegally maintained federal firearm records should set off alarms for every freedom-loving American. AI can either empower citizens or enable tyranny—it depends entirely on who controls the data. Right now, gun owners are losing that battle.

The government must not be allowed to digitize our rights away. Let this be a wake-up call. Stay armed with the truth—and stay involved. The future of the Second Amendment may depend on what you do today.

Gun Owners of America Uncover Proof of A Secret Gun Registry

The Fight Heats Up to Destroy ATF’s Illegal Gun Owner Registry ~ VIDEO

ATF Keeping 920+ Million Firearm Records with Almost All Digitized

About Tred Law

Tred Law is your everyday patriot with a deep love for this country and a no-compromise approach to the Second Amendment. He does not write articles for Ammoland every week, but when he does write, it is usually about liberals Fing with his right to keep and bear arms.