April 28: Congress Puts Your Anti-Registry Firewall on Trial

April 28 is not a procedural footnote. It is the opening bell of a fight over whether the federal government gets to quietly build a roadmap to every gun you own.

The House Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement convenes that day to examine ATF's operation under the **Tiahrt Amendment**—the statute that blocks ATF from sharing tracing data publicly, bans mandatory dealer inventory audits, and requires NICS background-check records destroyed within 24 hours. Three provisions. Three daggers gun-control groups have been sharpening for years.

Now they finally have their vehicle.

Rep. Madeleine Dean's **Gun Records Restoration and Preservation Act**, introduced in the 119th Congress in June 2025, would rip out Tiahrt's core protections: the tracing-data restrictions, the FOIA limits, the works. Dean's bill is the reason this hearing carries live stakes instead of just procedural yawns. The repeal is not hypothetical—it is already on the table.

**The good news:** the subcommittee leans Republican. The bad news: anti-gun groups will use this hearing as a national megaphone, pushing Dean's bill while branding every Tiahrt protection a "loophole that shields criminals." That framing is a deliberate lie—and they know it.

Tiahrt does not protect criminals. It protects law-abiding gun owners from government surveillance. It protects dealers from politically motivated harassment. It keeps Washington out of the business of building a de facto registry one tracing record at a time. Every restriction the other side calls a "loophole" is a right they intend to strip the moment they have the votes.

**This is how it starts.** A hearing. A bill with a sympathetic name. A friendly press narrative. And then, if gun owners stay quiet, a vote.

Do not stay quiet. Before April 28, call your House representative and demand they defend the Tiahrt Amendment—no compromises, no carve-outs, no "common-sense" half-measures that hollow it out while leaving the name intact. Find your rep's direct line at house.gov. It takes four minutes and it matters more than any social media post.

The hearing is the opening move. Watch who grandstands, watch who caves, and watch which names attach themselves to Dean's repeal effort. **Those names are the list.**

WTF News will be tracking every second of April 28. Stay locked in.