01 FFL's a vanishing breed?

[cwalker3]

I received an e-mail today from Empire Arms, (that's right, I'm on their 'secret' mailing list ), and in it Dennis ended with this little message:

member of a rapidly vanishing breed:
* 1999 - 175,000 Federally licensed firearms dealers *
* 2004 - 10,350 Federally licensed firearms dealers

If those numbers are correct, and I have no reason to disbelieve him, then that's a scary thought. I knew that the Feds made it much harder to get one under Clinton, and many are giving them up because of the myriad of guns laws that they have to deal with. But only 10,350 in the entire country?! Now that's an eye-opener.

(Mods if this belongs in the Political section, you have my apologies beforehand.)

 

[Third_Rail]

I knew of three people IN MY TOWN ALONE that had FFLs, now the closest non-storefront FFL is 45 minutes away by highway.

It's horrible.

 

[dukeofurl]

If you REALLY want to push the "for the children" point - having more people as federraly licensed dealers accomplishes several things.

#1 - Better insurance than NICS that they're good to go.
#2 - They cant sell private a la "gun show loophole" - so whatever state imposed wait is mandated
#3 - Increased tax money
#4 - All their information is on file, so if they engage in unscrupuolous dealings then its easier for the feds to catch them

 

[RAY WOODROW 3RD]

See how many in your state............

Go to the ATFE website and do a "Freedom of Information Act" request to them on how many FFL's their are in your state. They will mail the list out to you. It gives you their name, company name, address, license number and phone number for EVERYBODY in your state.

One of the guys from NJCSD did this so we as a group can contact them and it was found out that there are 391 FFL's in the State of New Jersey as of June 2004 down from over 600 FFL's in 2000.

RW3

 

[BenW]

I just saw my email from Dennis and was going to post this myself. That's a pretty shocking reduction. I know a lot of it was due to the .gov coming down hard on the "infamous" kitchen table FFL, but wow -- that many that fast.

I wonder if this includes C&R FFLs or just type 1s? I keep hearing rumors about creating more restrictions for us C&R folks. Here in CA at least, inspection frequency seems to have increased tenfold.

 

[thumbtack]

I wonder what percentage of the 10,350 are for Wal-Mart the stores.

 

[blackdragon]

01FFL

I've had my 01FFL for over a year now....I'm part time until the Gun biz can cover the mortgage.

My ATF agent was incredibly helpful with getting the paperwork done; my issue was local zoning -- no customers can come to my place of business. If no customers can come, I cannot do 4473's.

Just so that it is clear; my city has no special rules against gun dealers; the no customers applies to all home-based businesses, and short of knowing someone in the city council, there is no way around it.

Truthfully, the only reason I haven't given up is that I *hate* my day job... , but I can definately how it is too much work for a kitchen-table FFL these days.

Also, with places like SOG, AIM and CDNN offering the same prices to non-dealers as dealers, there is less of a need for local FFLs.

Unless you get a niche like Dennis did (I'm in the same town as him, btw. Great guy) I cannot see how any but the most stubborn ppl will even try to be small time dealers.

Keith J Paulson
(wannabe)Dealer in Exotic Arms

 

[Das Pferd]

A request for a listing of FFL's in your residential zip code should be addressed to:
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Chief, Firearms, Explosives and Arson Services Division
650 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Room 5100
Washington, D.C. 20226

 

[Das Pferd]

Like someone else pointed out, its probably not laws and the BATF getting stricter. Its simple economics. The internet I am sure has taken a huge chunk out of local FFL holders profits. Just as in any other section of the economy.

You look at most business types and the number is down in recent years.

 

[Hal]

I wonder what percentage of the 10,350 are for Wal-Mart the stores.

~ 1/3 (3,000)
Kmart accounts for ~ 20% (~ 2,000)

Leaves roughly little over 5,000 for the rest of the country, or ~ 100 per State.

Assuming each outlet is or needs it's own FFL. If Wally World and KMart are counted as 1 ea. then that's still only ~ 200 FFL's per State.

sumpin don't quite add up here.
~ 10K dealers in the entire United States figures out to ~ 207 per State.
If NJ has 400, then which state has 0?

OTOH, @ 175K plus, that figures out to ~ 3,500 per state.
(As an FYI, McDonalds has 30K restaurants worldwide. - That means that given the "high number" FFL's outnumbered McDonalds by a 5 to 1 margin - I find that hard to digest )

I'd really like to see some more concrete data.

 

[WonderNine]

That number makes sense to me. There's only three gun stores in the area and since nobody else can really have 01FFL's....

That's one of the reasons why guns are so expensive now. Too much monopoly on prices. And nobody would want to say anything about it. Piss off your local dealers, then where ya gonna go?

 

[Kharn]

Are you sure that 10k figure isnt missing a digit? I thought I heard it was more like 100k at the time.

Kharn

 

[Justin]

I don't know if the numbers that have been quoted are correct, but during the Clinton administration the rules for possessing an FFL were made much more strict and the costs of getting the permit were raised significantly. The result was that a lot of 01 FFL's were driven out of business.

I don't think it applies to C&R license holders because the C&R scheme didn't come about until just a few years ago.

 

[tulsamal]

With all due respect to Dennis, those numbers are hard to believe. We lost _83%_ in a five year period?! If true, it really is amazing but color me skeptical right now.

Gregg

 

[cpileri]

all part of the big plan

From the desk of Agent Schmuckatelli, ATF...

Dear Senator Feinstein,
Looks like everything is proceeding as planned. Keep in touch.
Regards,
Agent S-

 

[4v50 Gary]

When I was a kid, there were four gunshops in town. We're talking about storefront types with display cases and racks upon racks of guns. This is exclusive of any pawn shops that may have had FFLs. Today there are none.

 

[Tom Bri]

Well, seems to me that here is something the NRA should be doing something about. That is what they are for, right? All those contacts at the top in Washington need to be put to good use. If Feinstein can try to attach her bills, why can't our folks attach a bill dropping the fees back to their former low level?

 

[mainmech48]

Legislation? We don't need no stinking legislation! All done by bureaucratic fiat.

Jack up the renewal fee an order of magnitude or so to make it a REAL expensive "hobby".

Set up a more complex obstacle course of insurance, storage, zoning, etc. ad nauseum, prereqs for them to wade through. More technicalities = more "reasons" to refuse renewal apps.

While we're at it, let's make it a requirement that no transactions of any sort can be made at their residence. If we make renting and maintaining a storefront part of the deal, and only let 'em do anything during "regular, posted business hours" damn few of them will be able to make the cut financially.

And for a bonus, we get all of their records to add to the national database on firearms owners once we get them to throw in the towel. Who cares if we aren't allowed by law to make one? We'll call it something else, and once we dupe it into enough different servers, it'll ALWAYS be there for us if and when we want it.

The really sweet part of the whole deal is that we don't need to ask ANYONE in order to do ANY of it! We have the authority to change the rules any time we want, any way we want, on any pretext we care to invent. The law is whatever we say it is, it's all right there in the Act.


When the Head Honcho is a political appointee selected on the basis of patronage value and the "correctness" of his/her attitudes, a particular Administration can advance just about any policy that it chooses.

We can thank Billary and the Bunde for this one.