Congress blocks federal funding for gun-owner databases nationwide
H.R. 7678 — Gun Owner Registration Information Protection Act · Filed by Paul Gosar (R-AZ) · 97 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 25, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill prohibits the federal government from funding or supporting state databases that track gun ownership or gun owners. It carves out an exception for databases limited to lost or stolen firearms. The bill prevents federal money from flowing to any state or local effort to create or maintain a comprehensive registry of who owns guns.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is straightforward: it blocks federal funding for state gun-ownership databases. This is a direct privacy/anti-surveillance measure framed around protecting gun owners from federal-backed tracking, not a hidden rider or deregulation disguised as something else.
What the text implies
- The exception for lost/stolen firearm databases may be narrower than it appears: if a state's existing database conflates lost/stolen records with ownership records, federal funding for the entire system could be blocked, even the legitimate theft-recovery portion.
- States that have already built gun-ownership databases with federal grants may face pressure to defund or dismantle them, creating a chilling effect on interstate law-enforcement cooperation on firearm tracing.
- The bill does not restrict state funding of such databases—only federal funding—so wealthy states may continue building registries while poorer states cannot, creating a two-tier system.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Gun owners gain privacy protection from federally-funded tracking systems, which some view as a civil liberty. However, the bill may also impede legitimate law-enforcement and public-safety databases (e.g., stolen-firearm recovery, background-check systems), potentially reducing police effectiveness in tracing weapons used in crimes or recovering stolen property.
Named in the bill
Federal agencies, State governments, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands
Where it stands
97 cosponsors: 97 Republicans.
- Feb 25, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 25, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Mar 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $4,810,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 22 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Paul Gosar, the sponsor, reported $87,570 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Shooting Sports Foundation — $4,270,000 on 2 filings
- National Rifle Association of America — $540,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,158 characters) on Apr 16, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Mar 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 17, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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