Gun Owners of America criticized ATF Director Robert Cekada after his X post said the FBI manages NICS well, the monitoring is not secret, a April 2025 policy limited ATF alerts, 14.6 million checks occurred in 2025, 343 alerts were used with 61 still open, and alerts support documented federal cases on straw buyers, traffickers, or serious crimes rather than legal purchasers or state gun laws.

GOA said two points were false and three misleading. It argued passing NICS makes a buyer legal, so the government cannot both skip watching legal buyers and block prohibited ones. It said prior FBI use turned the system into local police alerts, still breaking registry and 24-hour deletion rules, that it stayed hidden until a whistleblower informed GOA and AmmoLand then faced discipline and indictment, and that ATF earlier helped California enforce an assault-weapon ban, making Cekada accurate only that ATF is not doing that now.