What’s Changed Since I Published

When I completed my research in August 2024, the Clyde amendment to defund the ATF’s digitization efforts had just passed committee. Since then, we’ve seen significant movement on multiple fronts — executive action, judicial decisions, and legislative proposals that collectively underscore both the volatility of this issue and the continued uncertainty surrounding firearms records.

Executive Action and ATF Reform

On February 7, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to review all Biden-era firearms regulations and identify “ongoing infringements” of Second Amendment rights. The order specifically targets ATF rules from 2021–2025, including those affecting record retention and Federal Firearms Licensees.

Following that order, the ATF replaced its “zero tolerance” enforcement policy in May 2025. That policy had been revoking FFL licenses for even minor paperwork errors — and in doing so, accelerating the closure of dealers and the transfer of their records to the ATF’s database. The new administrative action policy provides what the ATF calls “a fair framework” for addressing violations that don’t impact public safety. FFLs whose licenses were revoked under the old policy may now reapply.

Reporting by NPR in July 2025 indicated that officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are working with ATF on changes to approximately 50 regulations, including a proposal to allow dealers to destroy records after 20 years rather than retain them indefinitely — a direct reversal of the 2022 rule change. If enacted, this would reduce the future flow of records to the National Tracing Center when FFLs close.

Digitization Status

The ATF’s digitization of out-of-business records at the National Tracing Center appears ongoing, with the facility continuing to receive several million records monthly. The overall count remains around 920 million records. No halt to digitization operations has been announced. However, Rep. Michael Cloud successfully attached an amendment to the appropriations bill requiring ATF to publicly disclose the number of records in its possession and their digitization progress — the first mandated public accounting since the 920 million figure emerged in 2021.

Judicial Developments: Mixed Signals

The courts delivered conflicting outcomes on major ATF rules in 2025 — outcomes that illustrate the regulatory volatility at the heart of this debate.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 in Bondi v. VanDerStok that the ATF’s “frame or receiver” rule — which extended regulatory requirements to certain weapon parts kits and partially complete frames — is “not facially inconsistent” with the Gun Control Act. Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch held that the statute’s text reaches some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames. The decision affirmed ATF’s authority to define what constitutes a “firearm” and represented a significant validation of the agency’s regulatory infrastructure.

Four months later, however, the Department of Justice dismissed its appeal in Mock v. Bondi, leaving the ATF’s 2023 pistol brace rule permanently vacated. The rule, which had classified many brace-equipped pistols as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act, is now unenforceable nationwide. Federal courts had found the rule arbitrary and capricious, and the Trump administration elected not to defend it.

The juxtaposition is striking: ATF prevailed decisively on ghost guns but lost definitively on stabilizing braces. This volatility reinforces a central observation from my paper — relying on agency interpretation provides unstable ground for either side of the debate.

Legislative Activity

In January 2025, Congressman Michael Cloud and Senator Jim Risch reintroduced the No REGISTRY Rights Act, with 47 House co-sponsors and nine Senate supporters. The bill would require the ATF to delete all existing firearm transaction records, allow FFLs to destroy records when closing their businesses rather than transferring them to the ATF, and prohibit any federal agency from maintaining a firearms registry.

In a separate but related development, legislation eliminating the $200 NFA tax on suppressors and certain short-barreled firearms was included in major tax legislation signed on July 4, 2025. While registration requirements remain, this represents the most significant rollback of NFA restrictions in decades.

New Concerns: AI and Biometric Integration

Two developments have added new dimensions to the debate since the original paper was written.

In March 2025, Chairman Andy Biggs demanded ATF records after revelations that the agency used Clearview AI facial recognition technology during the investigation of the Butler assassination attempt — despite previous claims that the program had been discontinued. Gun Owners of America has argued that facial recognition capabilities, combined with digitized firearms records, could create “a national gun registry by another name.”

More broadly, reporting in August 2025 raised questions about the potential application of federal AI initiatives to the ATF’s digitized holdings. White House officials have confirmed plans to ingest government data into AI models for various citizen services — raising questions about whether digitized ATF records could be incorporated into such systems, further enhancing their searchability. While no specific integration has been announced, the policy debate has begun to incorporate questions about algorithmic analysis of firearms data that were largely absent from earlier discussions.

These developments make the legal and policy questions I analyzed more urgent, not less. The fundamental issues remain unresolved.

The Legal Landscape

Federal law sends mixed signals. The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 explicitly prohibits the establishment of “any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions.” The Brady Act requires that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System not operate as a registry. Congress has repeatedly attached riders to appropriations bills blocking the consolidation of dealer records.

Yet the same legal framework requires the ATF to trace crime guns — a task that becomes nearly impossible without accessible records. The Gun Control Act mandates that out-of-business dealers transfer their records to the ATF. A 1996 GAO report concluded that the ATF’s then-existing microfilm system didn’t violate the registry prohibition because it wasn’t comprehensive or easily searchable.

But that was before digitization at scale. And as the VanDerStok and Mock decisions demonstrate, courts are willing to scrutinize ATF’s regulatory interpretations — but outcomes remain unpredictable.

Two Legitimate Perspectives

In my research, I tried to take seriously the strongest arguments on both sides.

The case for digitization rests on practical necessity. The ATF traces hundreds of thousands of firearms annually. In urgent cases — mass shootings, homicides — speed matters. Paper records stored in warehouses don’t serve law enforcement well. Digitization, proponents argue, simply modernizes compliance with existing statutory duties without creating a true registry, since the records remain decentralized and aren’t consolidated into a single searchable database of gun owners. The Supreme Court’s VanDerStok decision, upholding ATF’s authority to define regulatory categories, suggests courts may defer to the agency on operational decisions about how it maintains records.

The case against centers on function over form. Critics argue that the statutory prohibition on a registry should be read purposively: if digitized records can be searched to identify gun owners and their firearms, that’s a registry regardless of what you call it. They point to the 2016 GAO report finding that the ATF had violated appropriations restrictions in handling certain record systems. They raise Fourth Amendment concerns about indefinite retention of transaction data and warn of a chilling effect on lawful gun ownership. The emergence of AI capabilities and facial recognition technology adds new urgency to these concerns — the same database that exists for tracing could, critics warn, be repurposed for surveillance or confiscation.

Both sides can point to case law supporting their position, though no court has directly addressed the digitization question at time of writing. In NRA v. Reno (2000), the D.C. Circuit upheld temporary retention of background check data for audit purposes, finding it didn’t create a registry. But that case involved a six-month retention period and explicit audit purposes — not the indefinite digitization of comprehensive transaction records.

What Would a Registry Actually Look Like?

Part of my research involved examining what gun registries look like in practice — both in U.S. states that maintain them (California, Hawaii, New York, and others) and in countries with national systems (Australia, Canada, Germany, and elsewhere).

Common characteristics include: a centralized database, detailed owner and firearm information, comprehensive transaction records, legal compliance requirements with penalties, and sometimes additional verification measures like fingerprints.

The ATF’s current system doesn’t check all these boxes. Records aren’t truly centralized in a single searchable database. There’s no requirement for gun owners to affirmatively register. But critics argue that the trajectory points toward something functionally equivalent — particularly as digitization continues, retention requirements expand, and new technologies like AI and facial recognition enhance the government’s ability to cross-reference and search existing data.

Where This Stands Now

The Trump administration’s review may lead to policy changes regarding the Biden-era record retention rule — the DOGE proposal to restore the 20-year destruction window would be significant if enacted. The No REGISTRY Rights Act could gain traction in the current Congress. But absent legislation that actually passes or court rulings directly addressing digitization, the nearly one billion records already in the ATF’s system aren’t going anywhere.

I’ll note that my 2024 research has been cited by several firearms publications including Bearing Arms and Ammoland, typically in support of arguments against the ATF’s digitization efforts. I’ve tried to maintain an even-handed approach in my analysis, presenting the strongest versions of both positions rather than advocating for a particular resolution.

The Takeaway

This isn’t a debate with obvious heroes and villains. Law enforcement has legitimate needs for efficient firearms tracing. Gun owners have legitimate concerns about government surveillance of constitutionally protected activity. The statutory framework tries to balance both — but that framework was written before digitization made comprehensive record-keeping trivially easy, and before AI made pattern recognition across massive datasets routine.

What’s needed is honest engagement with the tradeoffs rather than reflexive accusations of bad faith. My 2024 paper doesn’t advocate for a particular resolution. It tries to lay out the legal landscape, the arguments, and the stakes clearly enough that readers can form their own views. I still believe that is the right approach.

The full working paper, including detailed case law analysis and an appendix of relevant precedents, is available through the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.