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Gun Owners of America says the Department of Justice is refusing to investigate one of its own after a GOA member’s personal information was allegedly exposed in federal court filings tied to the group’s ongoing lawsuit over the National Firearms Act.

According to a recent GOA video update (see below), the controversy stems from the organization’s lawsuit challenging the remaining NFA registration requirements after Congress reduced the tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other NFA items to $0 through last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

GOA argues that if the tax no longer exists, the federal government no longer has constitutional authority to require registration.

The case took another turn when GOA submitted evidence involving one of its members who filed a Form 1 application with the ATF.

On the application, the member answered the question asking why he wanted to manufacture an NFA firearm with: “To exercise my God-given rights.

GOA says the ATF rejected the application, contradicting the Justice Department’s claim that the NFA approval process is essentially a “shall issue” system that places only a modest burden on gun owners.

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But according to GOA, the bigger problem came later.

The organization says attorneys representing the DOJ and ATF filed that same Form 1 into the public court record without properly redacting the member’s personal information. GOA says the filing included the member’s name, city and state, and another filing identified how many NFA firearms he owned.

GOA contends that Form 1 applications are tax documents protected from public disclosure and says the agencies even repeated the mistake after attempting to fix the redactions.

Following the incident, GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt asked the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General to investigate what the organization called an unlawful disclosure of private taxpayer information.

According to GOA, that request ultimately landed with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which declined to open an investigation.

The office reportedly said its policy is generally not to investigate allegations that could still be addressed during ongoing litigation unless a court has first made a finding of misconduct.

GOA sharply criticized that response.

“If the goal was to prove that the Department of Justice doesn’t care about privacy or accountability, they’ve massively succeeded in that,” the group’s video states.

The underlying lawsuit challenging the NFA registration requirements is still working its way through federal court, and GOA says it will continue pursuing both the constitutional challenge and accountability over the alleged disclosure of its member’s personal information.

As always, stay tuned for updates.

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