News is spreading like wildfire that Walmart is on the brink of turning over the 4473 forms for 500 stores to the ATF. The tip, released from a leaked conference call between the ATF and Walmart executives, sounds like a legitimate threat under current federal law.
Currently, a gun store must maintain the 4473 forms of customers who have purchased guns in their store in the event law enforcement have a warrant to see the details of a specific sale, etc. When a gun store closes, the law requires that store to turn those 4473 forms over to another licensed FFL dealer rather than destroy them.
That’s what’s happening with Walmart after the chain has indicated that they will stop selling guns in 500 of their stores next year. Those 500 stores represent nearly 20% of the 2,388 stores the chain has in America.
Walmart plans to turn over all of those 4473 forms to the ATF!
It Didn’t Have To Be This Way
By now it will come as no surprise to gun owners that Walmart is happy to stab gun owners in the back. But in case anybody needs another example, the reader should keep in mind that while Walmart is obligated to turn over the records to a federal firearms dealer ‘successor’, nothing in the law says it must be the ATF.
Any other federal firearm licensed dealer would be acceptable according to the law.
That means that Walmart could have chosen to send the documents to any local gun stores near the 500 stores, but they appear to have chosen the ATF, instead.
A Defacto Database Was The Goal All Along
Gun writer John Crump reports:
In recent years the ATF has started using high-speed scanners to catalog out of business FFL’s records into a searchable database using optical character recognition software (OCR).
Federal law prohibits the creation of a national gun registry. Yet, this appears to be what is happening, not only with Walmart’s records but all other out of business FFL records that are turned over at the close of business.
18 USC. Section 926(a)(3) states that:
No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.
But by using this loophole — only creating a database out of the surrendered records of shuttered gun stores — the ATF is doing just that!
They are knowingly and purposefully creating a searchable, online database of gun owners!
Universal Background Checks Lead To Universal Database
The anti-gun left have trained their activists to ask questions like, “Why are you so opposed to universal background checks? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about!”
Another favorite leftist talking point is about private sales: “If there’s nothing shady going on, why do you care about private gun sales so much? Those are just cover for criminals who couldn’t pass a background check!”
This case is the perfect example! Because corporate America has attacked gun owner for years! And now they’re in bed with Joe Biden and the ATF and they are determined to destroy our guns rights!
In 2021, gun owners are going to have to STAND TALL against universal background checks in every form, both at a State and Federal level.
As the heated political climate in America spills into the streets, the left is coming after our gun rights from all angles.