The ATF asserts that 1.4 billion firearm records obtained from closed dealers do not create a gun owner registry banned by federal statute. Representative Michael Cloud sent President Donald Trump a letter this week calling for destruction of the files on grounds that keeping them produces a searchable database that violates the statute.

The agency confirmed to Congress a total of 1,414,088,513 records, 92 percent already digitized, that list purchaser names and addresses along with each firearm’s make, model and serial number. Officials stated they cannot query the files by name or other personal identifiers and do not apply optical character recognition to extract that data.

Gun Owners of America federal affairs director Aidan Johnston described the holdings as a digital searchable database of transactions that Congress has forbidden.