In July 2022, Eric Schmitt, the Attorney General for Missouri, wrote to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (copy of letter attached) to confront the FBI with reports that FBI agents had been in contact with sheriffs in Missouri to make arrangements perform audits that included onsite reviews of Missouri concealed weapons permits.
With the Biden administration in office, it is not hard to come up with a list of reasons why the federal government might be doing this. It is also not hard to conclude that an "audit" of those kinds of state or local records is none of the federal government's business and, many would argue, is prohibited by the 2nd Amendment. But yet, there is clear evidence that the evil actors of the current bloated administration are trying to do this very thing. It is also easy to conclude that local and state officials in many states will simply and eagerly comply with these "audit" requests.
Tennessee Firearms Association made an Open Records Request to the Tennessee Department of Safety to see if there were any similar inquiries made to the Department of Safety since it is the entity that maintains the Tennessee handgun permit databases (yes, we have 2 different permits). According to a letter dated August 17, 2022, the Department of Safety states in response to that request that it could not locate records of similar requests made to it by a federal agency. Now, of course, that does not mean that similar requests have or have not been made by the FBI to Tennessee's sheriffs or chiefs of police - we just don't know at this point.
We are also, at this point, unaware of any letter or communications from the Tennessee Attorney General to the FBI similar to the one that Attorney General Schmitt issued.
If you are aware of inquiries from any federal agency directed to Tennessee state or local officials seeking information on Tennesseans who are gun owners or permit holders, please forward that information to us.
TFA tried to push for legislation the last few years that would have prohibited state or local officials in Tennessee from cooperating with such requests but the Tennessee Legislature refused to pass that legislation and instead passed a watered down alternative that lacks any meaningful protections for Tennesseans.
