They're Coming for Tiahrt Apr. 28 — Stop the Registry Now
Dean's bill would gut the 24-hour NICS destruction rule and crack open ATF trace data—handing future administrations the skeleton of a federal gun registry.
Mark the date in red: **April 28**. The House Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement convenes a formal hearing on the Tiahrt Amendment—the law that has blocked a creeping federal gun registry for over two decades.
This isn't background noise. This is the opening move.
The vehicle is the **Gun Records Restoration and Preservation Act**, dropped by Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) in June 2025. In a single bill, Dean targets three core Tiahrt protections: throwing ATF firearms trace data open to the public, authorizing ATF to conduct physical inventory audits of your local gun dealer, and—the one that should stop every gun owner cold—**eliminating the 24-hour destruction requirement for NICS background check records.**
That last piece is the whole game. Retain those records past 24 hours and you don't need to call it a registry. You just *have* one.
Dean and her Bloomberg-aligned allies know exactly what they're doing. For years they've dressed this push in law-enforcement language, claiming Tiahrt "shields illegal trafficking." That's a messaging strategy, not a fact. Tiahrt protects tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners from having their purchase histories warehoused in a federal database that any future administration could weaponize at will. The people pushing this bill have lobbied against concealed carry and suppressor deregulation in the same breath. Their concern was never about stopping criminals—it was always about building the list.
**Here's what makes this hearing dangerous even with a Republican majority in the room.**
Hearings generate records. Records fuel legislation. Legislation moves fast the moment political conditions shift. A sympathetic hearing today is a floor-vote blueprint for tomorrow. The threat isn't that Dean's bill passes this week—it's that April 28 becomes the foundation for the next push, and the one after that.
Watch who testifies. Watch which Republicans lob softball questions instead of hard ones. Watch whether the "law enforcement groups" Dean cites are the same organizations that have spent years fighting the rights of the very officers they claim to represent.
That pattern is the story.
**What you do right now matters more than what happens in that hearing room.** Call your House representative today. Tell them Tiahrt stays—every word, every provision, no negotiations. One hundred million legal gun owners have a purchase history that belongs to them, not to a federal database, and not to the next administration that decides to use it.
The gun-grabbers finally have their hearing. Make sure Congress also hears the roar from the other side.
*Stay with WTF News for live coverage of who says what on April 28—and which Republicans show up to fight or fold.*
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