X. Special Topic: Obtaining Data from ATF and Defendants in Discovery

In this chapter

This special topic covers one of the challenges to obtaining information from both ATF and defendants in discovery. ATF maintains a veritable treasure trove of documents that may help identify malfeasance in the gun industry, but certain types of documents in ATF’s possession can be difficult to obtain due to a provision of congressional appropriations legislation known as the Tiahrt (pronounced TEE-hart) Rider. Relatedly, gun industry defendants sometimes fight hard to shield their own transaction records (described in the previous section) from discovery under the Tiahrt Rider, despite strong evidence that the Rider may not be used that way. 

This chapter will help you understand the Tiahrt Rider and the scope of its protections.

The Tiahrt Rider was first attached to congressional appropriations legislation in 2003.⁴³¹Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003, Pub. L. No. 108-7, § 644, 117 Stat. 11, 473-74 (2003). Since then, the Rider has been reupped with some changes several times; today’s operative version was enacted in 2011.⁴³²Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 609-10 (2011). This section covers two related issues: (1) obtaining documents from ATF and (2) obtaining documents from gun industry defendants.

For those seeking documents from ATF, the road is bumpy, to say the least. The Tiahrt Rider mandates that “no funds appropriated under this or any other Act may be used to disclose” the contents of ATF’s Firearms Trace System database or “any information required to be kept by licensees pursuant to [federal firearms licensing laws].”⁴³³Id. at 609.

There are several nuances to this mandate. First, the Tiahrt Rider is a budgetary provision. Accordingly, it appears to prevent using funds to disclose data and documents.⁴³⁴See City of New York v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp., 429 F. Supp. 2d 517, 526 (E.D.N.Y. 2006) (“The rider has no application to data that is not to be disclosed through the use of federally appropriated funds.”); Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Diamondback Shooting Sports Inc., No. 22-CV-0472, 2025 WL 346659, at *3-4 (D. Ariz. Jan. 30, 2025). In theory, the Tiahrt Rider can be read to allow disclosure if the requestor can avoid any expense to ATF. But courts have split on this issue.⁴³⁵Compare Ctr. for Investigative Reporting v. United States Dep’t of Just., 14 F.4th 916, 933 (9th Cir. 2021) (holding that certain records were not exempt from production under FOIA, and that the Tiahrt Rider merely barred ATF from using congressionally appropriated funds to produce them), with Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, 984 F.3d 30, 33 (2d Cir. 2020) (“Because the ATF operates only with appropriated funds, and because FOIA disclosure occurs subject to legal process, the [Tiahrt] rider exempts [trace] data from FOIA disclosure.”) and Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, No. 23-CV-3762, —F.Supp.3d —, 2026 WL 143346, at *11 (D.D.C. Jan. 20, 2026) (holding that Tiahrt Rider “doubly restricted” public disclosure of ATF’s firearms trace database by denying appropriated funds and by precluding courts from ordering disclosure pursuant to legal process).

Second, the Rider excepts disclosures to federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign law enforcement, subject to certain limitations.⁴³⁶Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 609-10 (2011). That is, appropriated funds may be used to disclose ATF trace data or licensee records for the purposes of sharing with, for instance, a local police department to aid a criminal investigation. These law enforcement entities may share this data with each other but may not “knowingly and publicly disclose such data.”⁴³⁷Id.

Third, the Rider allows the “disclosure” of “statistical information concerning total production, importation, and exportation by each licensed importer . . . and licensed manufacturer” and “publication” of annual statistical reports on products regulated by ATF or of “statistical aggregate data” on topics like firearms trafficking or misuse.⁴³⁸Id. Exactly what “publication” and “statistical aggregate data” mean is the subject of much debate.⁴³⁹Compare Ctr. for Investigative Reporting, 14 F.4th at 922 (holding that the Center for Investigative Reporting’s FOIA request for “[t]he total number of weapons traced back to former law enforcement ownership, annually from 2006 to the present,” fell into the “statistical aggregate data” exception of the Tiahrt Rider), with Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 410 F. Supp. 3d 225, 242 (D.D.C. 2019) (“[T]he Court is unconvinced that the number of violations committed by a particular licensee constitutes ‘statistical aggregate data’ for purposes of the Tiahrt Amendment’s exception.”). The Ninth Circuit has held that aggregate data may be produced to a requestor who will make the data generally known to the public, though courts are divided on this issue as well.⁴⁴⁰See Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 2026 WL 143346 at *15 (rejecting Ninth Circuit’s interpretation and holding that the Tiahrt Rider permits ATF to publish aggregate data on its own initiative, but not to release such data to FOIA requestors for them to publish).

Fourth, even if private litigants do obtain Tiahrt-protected data, the Tiahrt Rider restricts the “use[]” of such data in civil litigation.⁴⁴¹Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 610 (2011). In this way, the Tiahrt Rider complicates obtaining and using records from ATF or law enforcement agencies.

Practice Pointer

The Tiahrt Rider does not shield from production by ATF all ATF records relating to federal firearms licensees; only information that licensees are required by federal law to keep such as the ATF Form 4473 (firearms transaction record) and ATF From 3310.4 (report of multiple handgun sale).¹A more comprehensive account of firearms transaction records created by retail gun stores can be found in Section IX. Special Topic: Basics of a Gun Sale. Other types of records can generally be obtained from ATF with FOIA requests—records such as compliance inspections, revocation proceedings, and related correspondence. Although those documents typically contain some redactions, they can often be quite revealing and helpful, and it is a good practice to file a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for them in your cases.

To be sure, the validity of the Tiahrt Rider and the scope of its protections have been fiercely litigated.⁴⁴²See, e.g., Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence, 410 F. Supp. 3d at 243-44. In particular, courts continue to explore the interaction between the Tiahrt Rider and FOIA.⁴⁴³See, e.g., Ctr. for Investigative Reporting, 14 F.4th at 931-32 (“Given that the government has advanced no argument suggesting that the 2010 or 2012 Riders satisfy the OPEN FOIA Act or that they do not need to satisfy the OPEN FOIA Act, . . . the data requested by CIR is not exempted from disclosure under FOIA.”); Everytown, 984 F.3d at 33; Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence, 410 F. Supp. 3d at 240 n.3 (collecting cases that have found that the Tiahrt Rider qualifies as an Exemption 3 statute, despite its lack of specific citation to Exemption 3); Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 2026 WL 143346 at *6-*15 (concluding that Tiahrt Rider is a FOIA Exemption 3 statute); Fowlkes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (“Fowlkes I”), 67 F. Supp. 3d 290, 301 (D.D.C. 2014) (finding that ATF failed to demonstrate that Exemption 3 under FOIA applies, because the 2012 Tiahrt Rider does not specifically cite FOIA); Fowlkes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (“Fowlkes II”), 139 F. Supp. 3d 287, 292 (D.D.C. 2015) (finding that ATF’s supplemental declaration detailing “the history of Congressionally-imposed funding restrictions and conditions on [ATF’s] ability to disclose trace information” demonstrates that the Tiahrt Rider’s funding restrictions remain “active and enforceable” and “subject to [Exemption 3]”); Abdeljabbar v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, 74 F. Supp. 3d 158, 176 (D.D.C. 2014) (similar). Although litigation continues, the Tiahrt Rider remains a barrier to obtaining certain types of documents from ATF.

However, the Tiahrt Rider may not be properly used to shield gun industry defendants from producing their own documents. Both the text of the Rider and the case law instruct that document produced and maintained by the defendants themselves—things like Form 4473s, acquisition and disposition records, and sales receipts—are fair game in discovery from the federal firearms licensees. This does not stop some gun industry defendants from making this argument during discovery disputes, however. Defendants sometimes point to the Rider’s provision that “all such data . . . shall not be subject to subpoena or other discovery . . . .”⁴⁴⁴Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 609-10 (2011). The question is, of course, how to interpret the phrase “all such data.”⁴⁴⁵See, e.g., City of Chicago v. U.S. Dep’t of Treasury, 423 F.3d 777, 780-81 (7th Cir. 2005) (holding that there is “no ambiguity” and that “such data” refers to ATF “tracing data and the data regarding multiple sales”). Industry defendants argue that it includes any information required to be kept by federal firearms licensees pursuant to federal laws—whether or not federal funds were used to disclose it and whether or not ATF ever actually possessed the documents at issue. This is a massive, unsupported expansion of the Tiahrt Rider’s protections.

Courts have rejected this gun-industry argument. Most recently, the federal court for the District of Arizona found that the Tiahrt Rider does not shield a defendant’s business records from discovery. The court concluded, “The most natural reading of the term ‘such data’ as used in the Tiahrt Amendment is data within the three delineated categories that is in ATF’s possession and subject to disclosure by ATF using appropriated funds. . . . The Amendment does not restrict Defendants’ disclosure of their private business records.”⁴⁴⁶Diamondback Shooting Sports, 2025 WL 346659, at *3 (cleaned up). Specifically, the court endorsed the position of the United States as amicus that the Tiahrt Rider “applies to information maintained by ATF and does not restrict the discovery of . . . the private business records of a federal firearms licensee.”⁴⁴⁷Id. (cleaned up); see also City of New York, 429 F. Supp. 2d at 526 (“The rider has no application to data that is not to be disclosed through the use of federally appropriated funds.”); City of New York v. A-1 Jewelry & Pawn, Inc., No. 06-CV-2233, 2008 WL 346366, at *4 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 6, 2008) (“[N]othing in either the 2006 Act prohibits disclosure, by defendants, of the 4473 Forms and Multiple Sales Forms”); Williams v. Beemiller, Inc., 42 Misc. 3d 438, 443 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Erie Cnty. Sup. Ct. 2013) (“[D]efendants may not assert the Tiahrt Amendment as a shield to insulate all private business records—including those mandated by 18 USC § 923—simply because ATF may have had access to them.”). Accordingly, the court compelled discovery of documents relating to the “sale and purchase of firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories, including forms that Defendants are required to maintain [under federal law]”—which would include transaction records like ATF Form 4473s, ATF Multiple Sale Reports, and licensees’ acquisition and disposition log.⁴⁴⁸Diamondback Shooting Sports, 2025 WL 346659, at *1, 4.

In sum, while the Tiahrt Rider does make gun violence prevention litigation more complicated, it does not foreclose it. The recent decision in Arizona takes another step toward clarifying that the Tiahrt Rider’s protections do not go beyond certain documents in ATF’s possession.⁴⁴⁹See id.; see also A-1 Jewelry & Pawn, 2008 WL 346366, at *4 (“As far as the objections of the Babcock defendants and Old Dominion relating to the 2006 Act are concerned, the Court finds that nothing in either the 2006 Act prohibits disclosure, by defendants, of the 4473 Forms and Multiple Sales Forms.”).

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Navigate to other sections of the guide

• PLCAA Guide Main Page

• I. Introduction

• II. Types of Firearms Litigation

• III. Is Your Lawsuit a Qualified Civil Liability Action?

• IV. Predicate Exception

• V. Negligence Per Se Exception

• VI. Negligent Entrustment Exception

• VII. Product Defect Exception

• VIII. Other Exceptions

• IX. Special Topic: Basics of a Gun Sale

• XI. Special Topic: Removal to Federal Court

• XII. Special Topic: State Industry Protection Laws

• XIII. Special Topic: Legislative History

• XIV. Appendix: Annotated Text of PLCAA

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This manual is dedicated to our clients, past and present, whose bravery is our constant source of inspiration. We hope that this manual will serve as a useful tool for litigators seeking justice and accountability on behalf of their clients and working toward a future free from gun violence.

© 2026 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund