Gun license applicants get priority over federal compliance inspections, The centerpiece of the new White House proposal to curb gun violence aims to direct more applicants to a gun dealer licensing system that already is weighted in favor of aspiring firearm dealers, manufacturers and importers over insuring the nearly 140,000 existing licensees are following federal regulations, according to government records.
Up to 10,000 new business applications received each year by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives are given heightened priority by a group of a little more than 600 industry investigators who must issue decisions within 60 days of a fully completed application’s receipt. Yet the same group of investigators is tasked with conducting periodic compliance inspections of tens of thousands of existing licensed gun dealers.
While the goal is to review the operations of federal licensees every three to five years, said Ed Courtney, chief of the ATF’s Firearms Industry Branch, “there are numbers of licensees that have not been seen in more than five years.’’
“We are spending more time putting more people in business than inspecting (existing licensees),’’ Courtney said.
In 2014, according to ATF records, the ATF conducted 12,404 firearm license application reviews, while compliance inspections numbered 10,429. There were a total of 140,446 licensees in 2014, including 55,512 individual firearm dealers.
The Obama administration, as part of a series of executive actions announced Tuesday to combat gun violence, is attempting to push more private firearm dealers to obtain federal licenses so that buyers would be required to submit to criminal background checks. Such checks are required on all purchases from licensed dealers, while many private transfers on the Internet and at gun shows have not been subject to that level of scrutiny.
President Obama also is calling for the addition of 200 ATF investigators and 230 examiners for the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to help process background reviews of gun buyers more efficiently.
Former ATF officials welcomed the proposal for an infusion of additional investigators, but they said compliance inspections of existing licensees have lagged over the years as the agency's budget for personnel and resources has remained largely flat for almost a decade.
When Michael Sullivan took over as the ATF's acting director in 2006, he said some dealers had not been inspected in more than 10 years. The lapse prompted a reinvigorated inspection system as the agency also sought to stop the flow of guns from the U.S. to arm drug trafficking operations in Mexico.
"The (uneven inspection system) was tremendously unfair to the ATF and to firearm dealers because many want to do the right thing,'' Sullivan said.
He described the plan to add 200 more investigators to the ATF — a proposal that must be approved by Congress — as a potentially "huge benefit.'' But others said many more investigators were needed to put the agency on firmer footing.
"It is fact that thousands of firearms licensees are never inspected, never,'' said Ben Hayes, a former ATF official who for more than a decade oversaw parts of the ATF's National Tracing Center. "The president's new initiatives are long overdue, but ATF needs more than 200 new employees to allow for enforcement. There will still be thousands who are never inspected.''
In detailing parts of the administration's new strategy, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said it is "impossible to predict'' how many additional gun dealers will be required to register or face possible criminal prosecution.
The push to license more dealers represents a reversal of sorts for the government, which in the early 1990s sought to discourage those who wanted to obtain licenses for legal cover to engage in interstate gun purchases. To cut down on such commerce, the government raised license fees from as little as $10 and $25 to a fee which now stands at $200.
The fee changes, former ATF officials said, contributed to a dramatic decline in the number of individual dealer licensees from 213,734 in 1994 to about 50,000 in 2007.
"There was always this tension over whether someone should be licensed or not,'' said former ATF director Bradley Buckles, adding that federal authorities sought at the time to better ensure that the universe of licensees did not over-tax the agency's capacity to conduct compliance inspections.
"The resources available to conduct compliance inspections always has been an issue,'' Buckles said.
While the universe of federal licensees (dealers, manufacturers and importers) in the U.S. declined slightly in 2015, from 140,446 in 2014 to 138,659, Courtney said the agency has been processing a steady stream of new applications — up to 10,000 — each year throughout the U.S.
About 99% of those applications are approved within 60 days of receipt. The number of new licensees are offset each year by thousands of other dealers who leave the business or allow their licenses to expire. Last year, about 6,000 dealers went out of business, Courtney said.
The overall number of dealers has remained fairly flat since 2013, after surging from 124,946 in 2011.
The period of accelerated growth included the aftermath of the 2012 Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre and subsequent federal gun control proposals that prompted record gun sales in the U.S. The administration's major proposals, including universal background checks, languished in Congress.
Up to 10,000 new business applications received each year by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives are given heightened priority by a group of a little more than 600 industry investigators who must issue decisions within 60 days of a fully completed application’s receipt. Yet the same group of investigators is tasked with conducting periodic compliance inspections of tens of thousands of existing licensed gun dealers.While the goal is to review the operations of federal licensees every three to five years, said Ed Courtney, chief of the ATF’s Firearms Industry Branch, “there are numbers of licensees that have not been seen in more than five years.’’
“We are spending more time putting more people in business than inspecting (existing licensees),’’ Courtney said.
In 2014, according to ATF records, the ATF conducted 12,404 firearm license application reviews, while compliance inspections numbered 10,429. There were a total of 140,446 licensees in 2014, including 55,512 individual firearm dealers.
The Obama administration, as part of a series of executive actions announced Tuesday to combat gun violence, is attempting to push more private firearm dealers to obtain federal licenses so that buyers would be required to submit to criminal background checks. Such checks are required on all purchases from licensed dealers, while many private transfers on the Internet and at gun shows have not been subject to that level of scrutiny.
President Obama also is calling for the addition of 200 ATF investigators and 230 examiners for the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to help process background reviews of gun buyers more efficiently.
Former ATF officials welcomed the proposal for an infusion of additional investigators, but they said compliance inspections of existing licensees have lagged over the years as the agency's budget for personnel and resources has remained largely flat for almost a decade.
When Michael Sullivan took over as the ATF's acting director in 2006, he said some dealers had not been inspected in more than 10 years. The lapse prompted a reinvigorated inspection system as the agency also sought to stop the flow of guns from the U.S. to arm drug trafficking operations in Mexico.
"The (uneven inspection system) was tremendously unfair to the ATF and to firearm dealers because many want to do the right thing,'' Sullivan said.
He described the plan to add 200 more investigators to the ATF — a proposal that must be approved by Congress — as a potentially "huge benefit.'' But others said many more investigators were needed to put the agency on firmer footing.
"It is fact that thousands of firearms licensees are never inspected, never,'' said Ben Hayes, a former ATF official who for more than a decade oversaw parts of the ATF's National Tracing Center. "The president's new initiatives are long overdue, but ATF needs more than 200 new employees to allow for enforcement. There will still be thousands who are never inspected.''
In detailing parts of the administration's new strategy, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said it is "impossible to predict'' how many additional gun dealers will be required to register or face possible criminal prosecution.
The push to license more dealers represents a reversal of sorts for the government, which in the early 1990s sought to discourage those who wanted to obtain licenses for legal cover to engage in interstate gun purchases. To cut down on such commerce, the government raised license fees from as little as $10 and $25 to a fee which now stands at $200.
The fee changes, former ATF officials said, contributed to a dramatic decline in the number of individual dealer licensees from 213,734 in 1994 to about 50,000 in 2007.
"There was always this tension over whether someone should be licensed or not,'' said former ATF director Bradley Buckles, adding that federal authorities sought at the time to better ensure that the universe of licensees did not over-tax the agency's capacity to conduct compliance inspections.
"The resources available to conduct compliance inspections always has been an issue,'' Buckles said.
While the universe of federal licensees (dealers, manufacturers and importers) in the U.S. declined slightly in 2015, from 140,446 in 2014 to 138,659, Courtney said the agency has been processing a steady stream of new applications — up to 10,000 — each year throughout the U.S.
About 99% of those applications are approved within 60 days of receipt. The number of new licensees are offset each year by thousands of other dealers who leave the business or allow their licenses to expire. Last year, about 6,000 dealers went out of business, Courtney said.
The overall number of dealers has remained fairly flat since 2013, after surging from 124,946 in 2011.
The period of accelerated growth included the aftermath of the 2012 Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre and subsequent federal gun control proposals that prompted record gun sales in the U.S. The administration's major proposals, including universal background checks, languished in Congress.
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