D.C. Police Take Over All FFL Transfers On Mayor’s Order

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hps1

hps1

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Thought this was an unexpected turn of events.

D.C. Police Take Over All FFL Transfers On Mayor’s Order
by Levi Sim on April 23, 2020
Related Tags: Buzz, News

DC-MPD-FFL-Levi-Sim-4-1024x768.jpg
On a good day, purchasing a firearm as a resident of Washington, D.C. requires a lot of paperwork. Oh, and a $125 transfer fee plus another $50 or so to register your gun with the police department.

But since March 14th, it’s been impossible to get the transfer done because the District’s only Federal Firearms Licensee, Charles Sykes, decided to close up shop because he became overwhelmed with business due to the COVID-19 gun boom.

“I was getting so inundated with firearms coming in, it got to be too much,” Sykes told The Washington Post. “I had to stop accepting them. Any firearms that come in now, they automatically get sent back.”

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This is the location of Sykes’s previous shop. (Photo: Google Maps)
Sykes lost the lease on his original shop in 2011 and has since been operating from the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Department, according to dcist.com. Rent for his space there is reportedly just $100 per month. But it’s a good spot because guns must also be registered in the same building.

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The recent flood of firearms sales just proved too much for his operation. Every handgun purchased by a DC resident must be transferred through an FFL in the District. Because Sykes was the only FFL, he got all the business.

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Since 2011, DC’s only FFL has operated from MPD Headquarters. (Photo: Google Maps)
“It looked like it was going to continue, that there was no end in sight,” he said. “A person has to know his limitations, and I know mine.”

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office was aware of this problem and started working for a solution.

“Last month, the city’s sole commercial federal firearms licensee (FFL) abruptly ceased accepting any new business,” the city’s website reports. “MPD and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice immediately started working on options to meet residents’ Second Amendment requirements, while also ensuring public safety.”

DC-MPD-FFL-Levi-Sim-3-1024x149.jpg
Bowser issued an order allowing the Metropolitan Police Department to function as an FFL while there is no other commercial FFL in the city. The transfer fee will still be $125.

All the requirements and information for making FFL transfers and registering new guns are listed on the Metropolitan Police Department’s website. Unfortunately, it looks like FFL transfers and registrations are located on different floors of the building.

Second Amendment groups put pressure on the mayor’s office to find a solution to Sykes closure. It’s yet to be seen how such groups will react to the city’s police department being in charge of FFL transfers, which is a commercial venture in other cities and not a function of local government.

In the meantime, it looks like there’s an opportunity open for an FFL in Washington, D.C. — provided you can get around the strict zoning requirements for opening a gun store and get the authority back from the police.

https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/...-take-over-all-ffl-transfers-on-mayors-order/

Regards,
hps
 
Since 1976, it's been well known that if you're into guns at all, D.C. is not the place where you want to live. The Heller decision really didn't do much to change the realities on the ground. It's easy enough to choose to live in neighboring Maryland or Virginia (although they're also rapidly becoming inhospitable to guns).
 
This is actually a remarkable break with a tradition of mayoral incompetence and corruption in the District. While one may, and quite likely should, query the justice of having only one FFL in the District operating a monopoly at extraordinarily inflated transfer fees, from police HQ, that the Mayor acted to have the police take over FFL transfers when the monopolist closed doors is, in District terms, remarkably good government. It's all well and fine for the free state residents to snicker, but there have been at least two surprise moments from normally hostile jurisdictions during Covid-19: 1) the Gov of Illinois putting gun shops on the essential business list, and 2) the Mayor of DC intervening to ensure the continued transfer of firearms in the District.
 
I’m more concerned with what the situation looks like as a resident. I’m assuming that DC would be treated like it’s own state, and as such citizens cannot legally purchase a firearm outside of the city jurisdiction or they would run afoul of the law making interstate firearm transactions illegal. So, now, gun sales are essentially nonexistent. Transfers can happen, but with no FFL with a storefront people can’t go shopping. Surprisingly high numbers of people still cannot order things like socks or baby bottles online without considerable help (Im finding this out far too frequently as we are the recipients for virtual baby showers) and firearm shopping is even more painful due to legalities, not to mention that people can no longer handle and feel a gun before purchasing it, let alone have a chance to properly inspect it. This seems to be an unbelievable mess, and an overstep and gross infringement upon the rights of the citizens. Sounds like impossible zoning has created the issue, and that should change.

Having said that, with Covid19 and all the mess in Society, now is actually not a bad time to be a DC resident. Fishing should be good over near the Jefferson memorial, and along the walls at the FDR memorial. That area would be a really nice area to have a simple picnic lunch.
 
DC is surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are not too far away. It wouldn't be a major undertaking to visit nearby stores and check out a gun.

Then ship and pay transfer fee. Not the least expensive way, but doable.
 
Just ridiculous for D.C. Cant say I’m not surprised. Good news is there is more 1st time buyers than ever.
 
George P said:
Folks are losing their jobs and this guy has a monopoly, a huge boom in business and quits? What, he couldn't hire an assistant to help?
Click to expand...

That’s what I was wondering. $125 a pop for what? 20 minutes worth of work?

Sounds like a good time for someone in the police department to retire and start their own FFL.
 
Speedo66 said:
DC is surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are not too far away. It wouldn't be a major undertaking to visit nearby stores and check out a gun.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what D.C. residents were doing: going to a Virginia or Maryland gun shop (or, more likely, a dealer at a gun show in one of those states), picking out a gun, and having it shipped to Sykes.

I don't think it was a matter of profit for Sykes (even though he had a monopoly). He just got tired of the whole thing and wanted to retire.

Muriel Bowser is no closet gun-rights advocate. She had no choice, because without an FFL dealer in the District, the courts would have ruled that this was a de facto violation of the Heller decision and possibly held the District government in contempt.
 
Its the typical DC mess. If they hadn't made the zoning so tough someone may have opened another shop, they made it so that you really couldn't open a shop except in a few rare locatoins. They created this illegal and unconstitutional mess and need to be drug back into court and forced to fix it.

I can't see either how she can simply anoint the DC police with and FFL. Where is the ATF on this?!?!?! Can any law enforcement agency in America now just become and FFL if they like? Then, they are charging as much as the FFL was even though the people doing the work are paid DC police, that doesn't seem right either.

Typical DC games. That place is a mess on so many levels.
 
Sykes seems to be an odd bird. Based on past comments I never got the impression that he thinks most people should be allowed to own handguns. Before the DC laws were changed his business consisted of selling to police officers. It was a nonpublic, by appointment only operation. He likes dealing with cops whom he considers trained to use handguns properly. I don't think he wanted to become a retail dealer but was pressured into doing it because he was the only existing dealer. He seemed to be very concerned about public attention, business security and the general public not having sufficient training. Never understood why another person hasn't opened a real gun store in DC.
 
Jim Watson said:
A badge is not a FFL. I don't see how a police department can transfer a gun to a resident. Looks like this one would have to take a double track through courts and BATF.
Click to expand...
The Washington Post article said that the DC Metropolitian Police Department applied for and was issued an FFL just like a private business.
 
Corporations, LLCs, and Trusts can be FFLs. Whoever has the authority to direct the management of the entity is designated the "responsible person" and the criminal background check is done on them.
 
reddog81 said:
I don’t see anything that would take more than 2 minutes for the seller to complete on your link.
Click to expand...


$125 a pop X 8 hr day = $30000.00 a day X 200 work days a yr.......


That's $6 million a yr of almost pure profit (rent is $100/mo) to just fill out a few things.


Sounds simple enough that even a cave man can do it.
 
When I see those DC license plates with the slogan about taxation without representation—on more BMWs and Tesla in a day than are in my whole state— I get irritated. More like “all my taxation without responsibility!” Then I recall that if you want to live there and you’re not a legislator, executive or minion you are effectively disarmed and I feel kind of ashamed for my irritation. It is certainly a weird place. You also see more of what I am confident are full-auto weapons on a walking tour than you could find elsewhere outside a military base.

I wonder how many transfers were actually done to ordinary citizens in 2019 in DC? I didn’t have any luck googling it. Pretty sure that it wasn’t the tongue-in-cheek number danez71 used of 48,000... I wonder too what he charged police officers when that was his exclusive business?
 
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