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« Glenn Reyolds on more guns and gay marriage | Main | Televised story on the AR-15 »

USA Today on gun dealer inspections

Posted by David Hardy · 23 April 2013 10:59 PM

It is hard to describe the ways in which its article is wrong or misleading.

"The number of gun dealers has increased 16% since 2004..." 16% in nine years ... and before that it fell by, I forget the precise percentage, but something like 50-60% in the decade before that.

"The report found violations of record-keeping rules are up 276% since 2004, but the number of firearms licenses revoked is down 43%." I thought the point was that the law wasn't being sufficiently enforced? It sounds like there are a lot more minor citations, since the article concedes, "Although license revocations are down, the number of other enforcement actions, such as warning letters and suspensions, is almost four times higher."

"Unless inspectors find multiple violations that would require a reinspection, a 1986 federal law bans the agency from making more than one unannounced inspection every year." No, it can also inspect anytime a firearm is "traced" to a dealer.

Which itself is important. As one former Treasury official pointed out to me, while tracing guns to a dealer doesn't prove he was involved in sale to criminals, the fact that no guns have been traced to a dealer makes it very probably that he is not involved in sales to criminals, even unintentionally. If a dealer hasn't even a tiny link to crime (the firearms he sells aren't even stolen and recovered) then there is zero reason to inspect him. Who cares how well he keeps his paperwork?

· BATFE

4 Comments | Leave a comment

skidmark | April 24, 2013 4:34 AM | Reply

Does every minor violation demand the revocation of the FFL? Remember, ATF was gigging FFLs for entering the USPS-approved abbreviation for the state as opposed to writing it out in full. There never was anything that commanded the FFL to write out the name of the state, but ATF gigged them because ... well, because.

Some ATF agents were gigging FFLs because they filed the form 4473s by date completed as opposed to alphabetically by transferee's last name. While it may take a bit longer to find the form, the form was filed and retained - the two requirements imposed by ATF.

Using the same "logic" drivers licenses should be revoked for parking tickets. But I do not see any call for that to happen.

stay safe.

James | April 24, 2013 9:12 AM | Reply

Heck, there was one gun dealer in Texas who had to post a sign saying that stripped AR-15 lower receivers could only be sold as replacement parts, not for building new rifles, thanks to his ATF inspector. He knew it wasn't accurate but didn't want to annoy the inspector. I'd LOVE for the ATFE's books to be inspected to the level of accuracy they demand of FFL's, the BATFE would be shut down in short order if they were held to the same standard, and half of management would be prosecuted for paperwork violations.

wrangler5 | April 24, 2013 11:30 AM | Reply

It's probably safe to say that virtually every organization in the federal government would be shut down if it had to meet the bookkeeping standards they apply to the rest of us.

I have a friend who worked at Cabelas for several years (he said their volume was such that they had at least 1 if not 2 ATF agents permanently assigned to their gun business.) At some point their agents said it was OK if the store went back to using the common abbreviations in addresses, but it sounded like this was a decision made at the local agent level.

Wasn't the dealer they tried to shut down in MT or ID charged with "willful violation" of record keeping rules for having more than 3 forms on which the state was abbreviated? (IIRC, they were one of the biggest gun dealers in the area, with thousands of records.)

BTW, the statement that "The industry is very concerned about making sure that firearms can be traced, because it is a vital law enforcement tool" gives me pause. Perhaps "the industry" has to say that to keep from torquing off their handlers, but I thought I've read that gun traces virtually never solve a crime - they almost always find the last legal owner, from whom the gun was stolen or, occasionally, legally transferred without benefit of federal blessing. I think gun tracing is only a vital law enforcement tool on teevee.

bud | April 24, 2013 4:16 PM | Reply

"Who cares how well he keeps his paperwork?"

Two kinds of people: those are looking for something, anything, that will put him out of business, and those for whom finding a misplaced comma means another day of employment. IOW, gun banners and bureaucrats.

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