From our Director of Special Operations, Jim Zammillo:
USA –-(Ammoland.com)- ATF recently released their inspection statistics for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014. The overall licensee population has increased by 2,000 to a total of 140,528 in the last year.
The majority of the increase was in dealer licenses (55,277) and firearms manufacturer licenses (9,900). Pawnbrokers remained relatively constant at 8,084 licensees.
Although revocations and denied renewals increased slightly again to 74, representing a five year high, the percentages of licenses either revoked/denied renewal or surrendered in lieu of revocation remains close to one percent of licensees inspected.
The number of new applications filed with ATF continued a downward trend to be only 10,288 applicants. Since the licensee population overall increased by only 2,000, this reflects the “turnover” in the licensee population.
The number of new applications denied remains high at close to 20%. While the typical denial rate had been close to 15%, the increase occurred in FY 2013 when ATF changed their Administrative Action Order (internal policy) regarding applications filed by those succeeding revoked or denied renewal licensees.
The most frequently cited violations remained constant for the second year, with transferees not properly completing ATF Form 4473, Section A, as the most frequent violation. Failure to timely record information in the A&D Record was second. Part of the A&D Record errors is directly related to poor inventory control, and this is seen by the steady increase in firearms noted missing when the inspection begins. The number initially missing for FY 2014 was 134,870. Although the vast majority of these discrepancies were resolved, 14,455 firearms remained missing.
Equally disturbing is the number of other violations related to public safety that have the greatest risk for administrative, criminal or civil actions. These include failure to obtain and/or document purchaser’s ID (#5 most cited), failure to report multiple handgun sales (#7), failure to contact NICS and wait the stipulated time prior to transferring a firearm (#9), and disposing of a firearm to a person that the licensee had reasonable cause to believe was prohibited (#10).
The latter relates to ATF Form 4473 Item 11 answers.
Following the FFLGuard Law Plus Guidelines, using FFLGuard’s Clients-Only Website Library, and calling FFLGuard’s HelpDesk can aid you in preventing virtually all potential violations. Remember: We really are here to help and one of our main goals is to keep you in business.
The link to the ATF statistics can be found here:
https://www.atf.gov/sites/
Best wishes for a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.