A Visit to a Gun Store Shouldn't Put You on a Government List
Gun registry bans might not be enough to protect gun owners from lists built from license-plate data.
When Eagle Sports Range in Cudahy, Wisconsin, removed its three Flock Safety cameras in August, general manager Saad Jaber cited broader customer privacy concerns, not misuse at the range. In Cleveland, Georgia, Gun Commanders owner Michael Carter covered his privately owned Flock camera with a trash bag and is having it permanently removed, telling Now Georgia his customers' trust matters more than "any piece of technology."
Police misuse of plate-reader data has sparked a nationwide backlash against those cameras. Gun owners have an additional worry: A lawful trip to a gun store or range could put them on a government list.
At a Senate hearing on Flock last month, Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) noted the cameras outside gun shows, stores, and ranges and pointed out that Second Amendment supporters have "long feared national databases of any kind." A week later, he announced he would soon introduce the Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require written approval and audit logs for searches and deletion of most plate data after 10 days. "Law-abiding Americans should not be treated like criminals," he said.
He's right about that, but he should add another rule. None of Hawley's announced safeguards specifically mention gun stores, gun shows, or ranges, and a search that is approved and logged can still return every car that pulled into one of those places.
Producers of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) such as Flock claim their vehicle-related intelligence tools can link sightings across multiple locations and cases and surface repeated appearances across time. If an ALPR records vehicles entering and exiting a gun store parking lot, querying those records could produce a list of every vehicle that came and went, while collecting no actual data on firearms transactions that occurred.
An ALPR identifies a vehicle, not necessarily its driver, and existing roadside cameras may just record passing traffic and not customers. Even a confirmed visit to a gun store does not establish a firearm purchase or gun ownership. Someone could be taking a safety class, or could be shopping with a friend, or might just be window shopping. A mistaken inference, by a human investigator or by an AI, could subject that person to scrutiny as a presumed gun owner.
Federal anti-registry laws do not settle whether gun store or range visitor lists are allowed. Under U.S. code, federal firearms regulations may not require any system to register firearms or their owners. The Brady Act generally bars federal officials from using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to build firearms registries. Neither provision addresses the issue of whether local police can compile gun store visitor lists from plate-reader data.
State laws raise a similar question. Alabama prohibits government entities from "knowingly" keeping lists of privately owned firearms or "the owners of firearms," with exceptions for criminal investigations, prosecutions, and other legally required records. This is the exact law that gun activists in the state have cited when calling for Alabama to ban Flock cameras. Whether a list of vehicles seen at a gun store counts as a list of "the owners of firearms" is precisely the ambiguity lawmakers should eliminate.
Federal agencies have pursued this type of record in the past. An April 2009 Drug Enforcement Administration email discussed plate-reader operations at gun shows. When this came to light in 2015, the agency clarified that the effort was a proposal and was never implemented. But The Wall Street Journal reported in 2016 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worked with local police to scan plates at a California gun show in 2010 and compare them against border-crossing records. ICE later confirmed the operation took place but declined to comment on specific methods.
Protecting visitors' privacy does not prevent or obstruct legitimate investigations. Jaber, of Eagle Sports, said the range's Flock cameras helped investigate a firearm stolen from a vehicle in its parking lot. A reported theft provides a legitimate reason to seek the camera's evidence. A lawful visit alone does not.
In response to recent concerns about privacy, Flock announced a series of reforms, including mandatory case codes and Audit Assistance for law-enforcement customers by the end of 2026. It also now allows agencies to restrict other departments' searches by offense type. If implemented properly, those reforms could document searches, flag potential abnormal activity, and restrict access. They are no substitute for a legal prohibition on government lists built solely on lawful visits, and Flock's CEO told Hawley in a letter that Congress should create a federal framework.
Washington state provides a good starting point for what a national framework could look like. Its plate-reader law, effective as of March 30, 2026, limits collection around specific, named facilities, including schools, places of worship, and protected healthcare facilities. It also restricts tracking activity protected by Washington's constitution or the First Amendment, and it requires warrants before police can access privately held ALPR data. Gun stores, gun shows, and ranges are not specifically listed with the other protected locations. But Washington's constitution includes the right to bear arms, so the law arguably covers gun store tracking already. Explicitly naming gun stores, gun shows, and ranges would remove all doubt.
In Ohio, state Sen. Al Cutrona (R–Canfield) has introduced S.B. 469, which would prohibit government plate readers within 500 feet of firearms retailers and places of worship while expressly allowing businesses to share their own camera data with police. The proposed law does not name ranges or gun shows.
Lawmakers should also limit what government can compile from privately shared records and how long it keeps them. Three rules would take care of this.
First, restrict routine government plate-reader collection from cataloging vehicles coming and going from gun stores, gun shows, and ranges. Specifically define protected entrances and other access roads to avoid instituting arbitrary "distance from building" camera rules.
Second, expressly ban government-collected visitor lists, and presumptions of firearm ownership based only on lawful visits, no matter where the data come from. Require a warrant for searches designed to identify who visited a protected location. Impose limits on those searches by time, location, and cameras. There can be exceptions for an investigation of a known vehicle connected to a specific crime and for genuine emergencies, followed by prompt review.
Third, make the limits enforceable through the preservation of query logs for independent audits. Restrict exports and retention of unrelated results while honoring evidence-preservation obligations. Provide a civil remedy for unlawful collection or use. When agencies share information, restrictions should follow the data.
Businesses would retain the right and the ability to run security cameras and share footage of incidents with police as they see fit under current law. The restrictions described here on standing lists would apply only to what governments compile from those records.
Buying a firearm is a lawful activity. Visiting a gun store is too. Neither should be enough to put someone on a government list.