When you're a law-abiding gun owner, the drill for this past three decades and change has become pretty familiar.
- Bring your ID, including (in some states) your carry permit.
- Fill out the BATFE paperwork - the Form 4473 that accompanies most handguns and "modern sporting rifles".
- Wait around the store while the clerk phones your information into the National Instant Check System (NICS).
- Most of the time, come back clear.
- Buy the gun, head to the range, practice being a real American.
And that's supposed to be all there is to it.
When you go to a gun store to buy a new gun, you can expect a few things to happen. First, some paperwork. Second, you can expect to have to pass a background check before leaving with your gun. And third, you can expect that the gun store will keep a record of your purchase for as long as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ("ATF") requires. After all, that is how the government traces crime guns back to their original purchasers.
But is it?
It's the federal government, after a few years of deep state running the show. What do you think?
Some government officials are hanging on to NICS data to surveil law-abiding gun owners.
In April of 2021 AmmoLand News obtained a leak from the ATF showing that the Bureau was monitoring people’s firearm transactions that MIGHT commit a crime in the future. Using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) the ATF kept tabs on over 1,000 American citizens. These law-abiding Americans have not committed any crime and are not under investigation. These are people the ATF or FBI believe are at risk of committing a crime in the future...The FOIA found that in May of 2020, the ATF was monitoring the firearms purchases of 525 people using NICS. That number has exploded to 826 individuals as of April 2021. The current trend is to monitor more instead of less law-abiding Americans. If this trend continues the ATF will be monitoring every American who ever legally purchased a firearm using a NICS background check.
As usual, the feds claim the activity is intended to monitor criminals.
🚨BREAKING🚨
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) April 2, 2025
ATF & FBI are spying on Californians’ out-of-state gun purchases to enforce CA’s unconstitutional “assault weapons” ban.
FOIA docs obtained by GOA expose how far the government will go to violate your rights. We’ll keep fighting to abolish this tyrannical system. pic.twitter.com/4WTh2k9VyE
But there doesn't seem to be much criminal-monitoring going on:
One instance highlighted the ATF monitoring a man that the Bureau feared might be buying guns to use during the riots of the summer of 2020. The target purchased a shotgun, which the ATF used as the reason for the monitoring of all his future firearm purchases. Using a lawful purchase to justify monitoring someone’s constitutionally protected activity is disturbing to many in the gun community.
The ATF also monitors people who spend more on guns than the Bureau thinks they should. The Bureau would monitor someone who spends beyond their means on firearms. Yet, people often spend beyond their means on other things, such as cars. The ATF doesn’t provide the percentage of a person’s income it considers to be excessive, but the fact is that many Americans live beyond their means and that is one of the reasons many struggle with debt. It might be more logical to assume that someone is not good with money before jumping to the conclusion that they are involved in something illicit.
Here's where it goes from infuriating to absurd; the Feds are stonewalling gun rights group attempts to get to the facts via the legal system:
After a year of waiting and threats of lawsuits, the ATF would finally produce documents about the program. The documents in question would reference reasons for redactions, but the actual documentation lacked these redactions. GOA contacted the ATF to get the redacted versions of the documents to release to the public. That is when the ATF realized its error and demanded that the gun rights organization destroy all the documents it possessed.
The gun rights organization refused. The documents were released to the gun rights organization by the ATF. GOA did not acquire the documents through any illegal methods and felt it had every right to keep and use the documents to inform the public of the unlawful monitoring of Americans. The ATF would file for a protective order against the advocacy group to try to compel it to destroy the documents and provide affidavits attesting to the destruction of the files and agreeing never to talk about them.
The deep state is not going to go away easily, least of all on 2nd Amendment issues.
