What led to the enactment of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986?

[AlexanderA]

What is true is that if FOPA had not been signed, there would have probably been no law passed.

As I said in my earlier post, the gun community had developed a number of workarounds to address some of the pre-FOPA problems. For example, the proliferation of "kitchen table" FFL's meant that if you didn't have an FFL yourself, most likely one of your friends, neighbors, or co-workers did. A lot of people, therefore, could (directly or indirectly) buy not only ammunition, but guns themselves, through the mail. And with so many FFL's, the ATF was hard-pressed to conduct many compliance inspections, much less "abusive" compliance inspections.

One of the worst results of FOPA, besides the Hughes Amendment ban on new machine guns, was the crackdown on "kitchen table" FFL's. If everybody and his brother could obtain an FFL (and, by paying an extra $200, also have SOT status), the face of the gun industry would be completely different. It would be dominated by mail order sales, even before the Internet. Of course brick-and-mortar local gun shops would disappear.

In the light of this analysis, it would appear that some segments of the gun industry -- such as local gun shops -- had a strong incentive to get FOPA passed at all costs. I have a feeling that the NRA was listening to them and not to ordinary gun consumers.

 

[denton]

There was a time when one of the best ways to buy firearms was to spend $30 for an FFL, and order out of Shotgun News. The new structure doesn't work that way.

 

[AlexanderA]

There was a time when one of the best ways to buy firearms was to spend $30 for an FFL, and order out of Shotgun News. The new structure doesn't work that way.

Culling the rolls of FFL's came shortly after FOPA.

 

[JohnKSa]

...we had found workarounds for most of the problems.
... the gun community had developed a number of workarounds to address some of the pre-FOPA problems.

Why not address at least a few of the nearly two dozen positive provisions to show why they aren't worth as much as they seem to be? Or maybe explain a few of the workarounds.

I can go to the link below and read 40,000 some odd words explaining how significant FOPA is. Seems only reasonable for you to make at least a half-hearted attempt at a rebuttal rather than just trying to dismiss it with handwaving.

http://www.guncite.com/journals/hardfopa.html

FOPA's amendment of the Gun Control Act is both deep (p.681)and wide-ranging. Congress clearly accepted that the alterations would be dramatic.[518] Its deliberations extensively reflect judgments that repudiated either the Gun Control Act in toto or its administration as a traditional regulatory system.[519]

FOPA will require greatly increased sensitivity, efficiency and coordination on the part of the administering agency. Delays may run afoul of FOPA's various limitation periods; unjustified administrative inspections may clash with its restrictions on searches; a failure to coordinate with litigation teams may result in criminal adjudications that bar the agency from undertaking forfeiture or revocation; and unfounded actions, civil or criminal, may risk liability for the citizen's attorneys' fees.

Conversely, FOPA confers both substantive and procedural rights upon citizens accused of Gun Control Act violations. Scienter requirements limit application of most of the Act's sanctions to willful violators; a citizen who wins a criminal acquittal need not face civil sanctions based on the same allegation; the length of time seized property may be held without hearing is strictly limited; and the unprecedented availability of attorneys' fees awards ensures that the financial risks of a meritorious defense may well be shifted to the prosecuting agency.

FOPA's safeguards are entirely innovative, and largely (p.682)unique. If they prove able to withstand the passage of time and experience, they may well merit extension to proceedings under other criminal and civil penalty systems.​

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Culling the rolls of FFL's came shortly after FOPA.

My recollection is that it came significantly after during the Clinton administration. Between ~'93 and '97. It was after the assault weapon ban. My primary I FFL was my mailman

It's funny because when everyone and his cousin had an FFL in the late '80s and early '90s there was almost no non-4473 transactions at gun shows. No digital cameras in those days I remember carrying carrying several Xerox copies of my driver's license to gun shows.

Mike

 

[AlexanderA]

My recollection is that it came significantly after during the Clinton administration. Between ~'93 and '97. It was after the assault weapon ban.

That was the second wave of FFL effects. Or, to put it more accurately, the number of FFL's had been rising dramatically in the early 1980's, it suddenly leveled off after the passage of FOPA , and then it dived precipitously from 93-97. The net effect of these developments was to go from a high of 250,000 to ~50,000.

Here's a rundown on FOPA's negative effects on FFL's --

On the negative side, FOPA sought to remove the acquisition of an FFL for strictly personal use or strictly personal gain. Changes from those who "engage in the business" of dealing in firearms (and are therefore required to have a license) to include only those who devote "time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms." Significantly, FOPA excluded those who buy and sell firearms to only "enhance a personal collection" or only for a "hobby," or who "sell all or part of a personal collection."​

https://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/History_of_FFL_License.pdf

FOPA is what allowed the ATF to start denying FFL applications from people who, for example, did not have premises properly zoned for business use. Before FOPA, approval of an FFL was pretty much pro forma for those who sent in the $30 fee.

The thing is, this was cloaked as a "safe haven" to protect people from charges of dealing without a license. The actual effect was far different.

 

[dogtown tom]

….One of the worst results of FOPA, besides the Hughes Amendment ban on new machine guns, was the crackdown on "kitchen table" FFL's. If everybody and his brother could obtain an FFL (and, by paying an extra $200, also have SOT status), the face of the gun industry would be completely different. It would be dominated by mail order sales, even before the Internet...

1. We bitch and moan about DOJ/ATF/USAO/local PD not enforcing or prosecuting illegal gun use. If they did "gun control" wouldn't be as hot a topic as it is. Yet we blame ATF for actually enforcing the provisions of GCA '68. FOPA was passed during the Reagan administration.
2. FOPA had absolutely nothing to do with the Clinton "crackdown".A Federal Firearms License has always been required for anyone engaging in the business of dealing in firearms. It has never been for hobbyist or for personal collecting purposes and says so right on the application. The only FFL for personal collecting is the 03FFL Collector of Curios & Relics.
3. More than a few of those who held an FFL prior to the Clinton "crackdown" lied on their application, either not intending to actually engage in the business of dealing in firearms, but as a means to acquire firearms for their own use or collection or lied when they certified that the business was able to operate legally under all state and local laws including zoning and HOA covenants.
4. ATF gave every single one of those "kitchen table" dealers the opportunity to "get legal", either by obtaining a business license, sales tax permit or by abiding by zoning requirements. Those that chose not to do so were not renewed.
5. An SOT is $500 per year, not $200.
6. In fact FOPA made life easier on FFL's because it limited ATF compliance inspections to no more than one per year.
7. Like the fact that we don't have a national gun registry? Thank FOPA.

 

[Texas10mm]

I would like to know if people commenting here own a machine gun (I do).

I enjoy being able to buy ammo without a form 4473. I enjoy being allowed to order ammo by mail. I enjoy being able to possess more than 5 lb of black powder at a time (50lb). I've taken advantage of the travel provision both by car and Airline more times than I can count. I am grateful for the prohibitions against record keeping. I'm also grateful that the ATF can't request a compliance inspection more than once a year. They used to drown people they didn't like in compliance inspections.

All in all I'm grateful for the FOPA with all its flaws

Mike

When was a 4473 ever required to buy ammo?

 

[AlexanderA]

Why not address at least a few of the nearly two dozen positive provisions to show why they aren't worth as much as they seem to be? Or maybe explain a few of the workarounds.

OK, I'll give you another example, just off the top of my head: gun show sales by FFL dealers. It's true that prior to FOPA, an FFL dealer could only make sales (finalize transfers) at his licensed premises. Yet he could set up tables at gun shows, display guns for sale, and take orders. And FFL-to-FFL transfers could take place anywhere. What we used to do, when making a sale at a gun show, was transfer the gun to another friendly FFL dealer who happened to have premises nearby. The buyer could then go to those nearby premises after the show and pick up his gun. I can remember a couple of instances when I personally drove the buyer to the cooperating dealer's premises to complete the sale then and there. Inconvenient, yes, but nothing earth-shattering. BTW, the really high-volume dealers did not have much of a gun show presence in those days. That was actually good for the small "kitchen-table" dealers. Gun shows today are quite different from what they were pre-FOPA. And not in a good way.

 

[AlexanderA]

5. An SOT is $500 per year, not $200.

It was $200 a year in the early 80's. Anyway, I was postulating a scenario in which FOPA and the fee changes had not been enacted, and in which the number of "kitchen table" FFL's had continued to escalate.

6. In fact FOPA made life easier on FFL's because it limited ATF compliance inspections to no more than one per year.

I never had more than one compliance inspection per year -- and that was probably because I had the SOT besides the FFL. Because of "safety in numbers" a lot of the small dealers were never inspected. ATF concentrated its inspections on "problem dealers" that had come to its attention.

 

[boom boom]

As I said in my earlier post, the gun community had developed a number of workarounds to address some of the pre-FOPA problems. For example, the proliferation of "kitchen table" FFL's meant that if you didn't have an FFL yourself, most likely one of your friends, neighbors, or co-workers did. A lot of people, therefore, could (directly or indirectly) buy not only ammunition, but guns themselves, through the mail. And with so many FFL's, the ATF was hard-pressed to conduct many compliance inspections, much less "abusive" compliance inspections.

One of the worst results of FOPA, besides the Hughes Amendment ban on new machine guns, was the crackdown on "kitchen table" FFL's. If everybody and his brother could obtain an FFL (and, by paying an extra $200, also have SOT status), the face of the gun industry would be completely different. It would be dominated by mail order sales, even before the Internet. Of course brick-and-mortar local gun shops would disappear.

In the light of this analysis, it would appear that some segments of the gun industry -- such as local gun shops -- had a strong incentive to get FOPA passed at all costs. I have a feeling that the NRA was listening to them and not to ordinary gun consumers.

Alexander A,
Looked up the data from the ATF. FFL licenses general retail license numbers were relatively flat from 1986 to 1994 (Exhibit 10. Federal Firearms Licensees Total (1975-2017) found on page 19 of the 2018 ATF Report on Firearms Commerce in the U.S. It can be found here along with other reports https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data-statistics

The numbers went from about 230,000 dealers in 1986 to 246,000 in 1993. It peaked at 1992 with about 248,000 dealers. This really does not support your thesis.

Instead, the 1994 AWB appears to be the culprit along with changes in ATF regulations on dealers during the Clinton administration. The waiting periods, the background check issues, etc. in the AWB probably caused a lot of small dealers to go out. If I remember correctly, the ATF increased FFL license costs, implemented new regulations such as locks and other such issues, and so forth but I don't have time to go to the source today to check.

Anyway, the number of dealers dropped to about 214,000 in 1994, and kept dropping from there like a rock in 1995 (158,240) and 1996 (105,398). I suspect in this case, the increased costs of the license plus more regulatory headaches drove most small dealers to not renew their licenses and discouraged new applicants. From that point, it went into a steady decline so by 2009 there were only about 46,000 FFLs. It has increased a little bit since then to about 56,000 in 2017. I am leaving out mfgs, pawnshops, destructive device licensees, etc. Pawn dealers had a bit of a decline but it occurred later than 1994. Collector licenses have went up until just recently.

 

[SSN Vet]

An interesting read. I can say I learned something new today.

While I do see 2A as constitutionally guaranteed insurance against tyrannical gub'ment, I don't see the it as pro-anarchy.

The Wo-Po article was informative, but you can tell the guy just doesn't get it. I don't think moral relativist ever will.

I think there are other factors that could be driving the decline in FFLs...

• How about the internet? Who needs an FFL to tap into distributor level gun pricing when you have the likes of Buds, Gunbroker, etc... out there.
• Or maybe a little insignificant event like the great recession, with fewer and fewer people having disposable income.
• Then there's the decline in hunting and traditional shooting sports.

Just fuel for thought.

 

[boom boom]

An interesting read. I can say I learned something new today.

While I do see 2A as constitutionally guaranteed insurance against tyrannical gub'ment, I don't see the it as pro-anarchy.

The Wo-Po article was informative, but you can tell the guy just doesn't get it. I don't think moral relativist ever will.

I think there are other factors that could be driving the decline in FFLs...

• How about the internet? Who needs an FFL to tap into distributor level gun pricing when you have the likes of Buds, Gunbroker, etc... out there.
• Or maybe a little insignificant event like the great recession, with fewer and fewer people having disposable income.
• Then there's the decline in hunting and traditional shooting sports.

Just fuel for thought.

That 2018 (and previous years) report has gun manufacturing, sales, and imports over the years. This is from Exhibit 1 of that report. The number of firearms sold peaked around 1994 then declined to about 2000, This probably reflects the number of cheap imports after the Cold War ended and the crack cocaine/crime epidemic which was supposedly the impetus for the 94 AWB. After 2001, they started going up again and we have the end the most onerous provisions of the 10 year AWB in 2004. From 2007 onwards, guns mfg. increased exponentially while the number of dealers stagnated. From 2012-2016 over 45 million firearms were manufactured and then a net of about 25 million imports ( I excluded exports from the import total) have to be added to that total. I presume that most of these were sold to someone.

Buds, Gunbroker, etc. still need local FFL dealers to facilitate transfers but they did not become widespread until later after the Clinton years. I suspect that the recent slight increase in FFL's has been from folks mainly on internet transfers for their business but cannot prove it.

 

[AlexanderA]

The numbers went from about 230,000 dealers in 1986 to 246,000 in 1993. It peaked at 1992 with about 248,000 dealers. This really does not support your thesis.

You have to look at the trend in FFL's prior to FOPA. In the early 1980's, the number of FFL's was skyrocketing, as people came to the realization that even with a marginal "business," you could qualify for an FFL with all the benefits that entailed. With the passage of FOPA, the number of applications went flat, reversing the earlier trend. (Since the licenses were good for 3 years, there was also a delayed effect as people waited until the term was nearly over before deciding whether to renew.) I'm contending that without FOPA, there probably would have been half a million FFL's by the early 90's.
The follow-on consequences of that would have been significant in many ways.

 

[JohnKSa]

It's true that prior to FOPA, an FFL dealer could only make sales (finalize transfers) at his licensed premises. Yet he could set up tables at gun shows, display guns for sale, and take orders. And FFL-to-FFL transfers could take place anywhere. What we used to do, when making a sale at a gun show, was transfer the gun to another friendly FFL dealer who happened to have premises nearby. The buyer could then go to those nearby premises after the show and pick up his gun. I can remember a couple of instances when I personally drove the buyer to the cooperating dealer's premises to complete the sale then and there. Inconvenient, yes, but nothing earth-shattering.

I agree that is not earth-shatteringly inconvenient. I also agree that it is inconvenient, both for the buyers and for the FFLs on both ends who had to transfer the gun so it could be picked up relatively nearby the show. That sort of service would now cost a buyer money but I'm assuming in those days it would be done at no charge which means FFLs working for nothing--that might go just a step beyond inconvenient.

I think we can all agree that gunshows where guns can actually be purchased are quite a huge improvement over gunshows where all you can do is place an order and pick up from a separate location, probably at a later date.

You have to look at the trend in FFL's prior to FOPA. In the early 1980's, the number of FFL's was skyrocketing, as people came to the realization that even with a marginal "business," you could qualify for an FFL with all the benefits that entailed. With the passage of FOPA, the number of applications went flat, reversing the earlier trend.

Even if we accept this statement for the sake of argument; slowing an upward trend is not at all the same thing as actually cutting the numbers--"culling the rolls of FFL's".

What I think is that the farther we get from the passage of FOPA, the more people focus on the Hughes amendment and the more they forget, gloss over, ignore, downplay, etc. the positive effects. Looking at the analyses and commentary from around the time that the bill was passed gives quite a different picture than is commonly bandied about these days, three decades later.

 

[dogtown tom]

You have to look at the trend in FFL's prior to FOPA. In the early 1980's, the number of FFL's was skyrocketing, as people came to the realization that even with a marginal "business," you could qualify for an FFL with all the benefits that entailed. With the passage of FOPA, the number of applications went flat, reversing the earlier trend. (Since the licenses were good for 3 years, there was also a delayed effect as people waited until the term was nearly over before deciding whether to renew.) I'm contending that without FOPA, there probably would have been half a million FFL's by the early 90's.
The follow-on consequences of that would have been significant in many ways.

Again, FOPA has nothing to do with people lying on their Form 7 to get an FFL. The reasons the number of FFL's declined is the simple fact that ATF began enforcing requirements instead of overlooking them.

FOPA didn't have any provision regarding additional enforcement action and in fact restricted the most likely reason for enforcement action......the arbitrary compliance inspection.

 

[CapnMac]

Politically, Hughes was meant to be a last-minute "poison pill" meant to prevent passage. Which was why Hughes was timed when it was (and thus, creating no small amount of consiracy theories to this day).

The problem was that the political benefits for passage were not diluted enough to stop the thing.

Politically it was actually a win/win; the antis could crow about "stopping the NRA" and the pros could champion to the good that was gained. (Not having to log ammo into a bound book was a giant "huzzah!"--as were mail order sales).

Sociologically, we can debate the effects, but probably to little real end. Historically, it was something of a "Coral Sea" for the antis, not an end, but a turning point from which they have not really recovered (politically speaking).

It's most of three decades later now. It's easy enough, from the perspective of the present, to sneer at FOPA (I know I'm guilty of it, and wrong for so doing). Which is rather more than nitpicking how the thing works in the present, rather than appreciating its change to the past. Such nitpicking seems to come naturally to we in the gun community, for better and for worse. That's grist for a diffent milling than here.

Times have changed, and for better and for worse, sic semper tempis.

 

[MachIVshooter]

What I think is that the farther we get from the passage of FOPA, the more people focus on the Hughes amendment and the more they forget, gloss over, ignore, downplay, etc. the positive effects. Looking at the analyses and commentary from around the time that the bill was passed gives quite a different picture than is commonly bandied about these days, three decades later.

Absolutely.

I was only 4 years old when Volker-McClure became law, but I know I'm danged glad we have interstate safe passage, registry prohibition and all of the other clauses that prevent abuse of FFLs and private owners alike. We all lament the Hughes amendment, but that was going to become law in some form at some point anyway. Who here really thinks closure of the machine gun registry wouldn't have happened with VCCLE in 1994? By now, the registry would still have been closed, and we'd have a whole other registry with a hundred million names in it.

Hughes amendment sucks, but FOPA was a very, very good thing for private owners and FFLs.

 

[AlexanderA]

OK, then when is the NRA going to rectify its mistake by really pushing hard for the repeal of the Hughes Amendment? All I hear from them are statements like Wayne LaPierre's congressional testimony that "machine guns are already illegal." The NRA seems all too ready to throw this segment of the gun community under the bus for the sake of public relations. Guess what? The NRA's image among the general public is already at rock bottom, and advocating for machine guns will not make it any worse.

There are plenty of "reasonable" arguments for why the MG registry should be reopened. Nobody is making the case. (Strangely enough, I can see even the antis getting on board with reopening the registry if it's presented as a "gun control" measure.)

 

[cheygriz]

GOD BLESS RONALD REAGAN AND FOPA!

 

[JohnKSa]

OK, then when is the NRA going to rectify its mistake by really pushing hard for the repeal of the Hughes Amendment?

1. The Hughes amendment was not the NRA's mistake. It was put into the FOPA by anti-gunners as a poison pill, hoping to kill the bill. In fact wasn't a mistake at all, it was an intentional act of sabotage by anti-gunners. The decision was made on the pro-gun side to continue to support the bill because the benefits outweighed the poison pill and while some believe that was a mistake, the majority at the time did not and I would say that the informed majority today still does not. At any rate, it is certainly not a given that the continued support was a mistake--at best it is a topic for debate.

2. The NRA did push hard for the repeal of the Hughes amendment, even supporting a court case that challenged it. They were unsuccessful because since it passed there hasn't ever been enough congressional support to get a repeal and because the courts held that it was not unconstitutional.

There are plenty of "reasonable" arguments for why the MG registry should be reopened.

If by "reasonable arguments" you mean that there is sufficient support to actually get a bill passed then I disagree emphatically. There wasn't even enough support to get the HPA to make significant progress and silencers are far less of a charged topic than machineguns.

I agree that there are "reasonable arguments" from the perspective of the pro-gun point of view. It is ludicrous to imply that those arguments would be considered "reasonable" to the anti-gunners. It's even unlikely, in my opinion, that they would be considered "reasonable" by the majority of the uninformed public. As an experiment, I asked a person who owns firearms but is not really a gun enthusiast about the idea of re-opening the registry. The person commented that the non-gun-owning public would be mostly opposed to it and that it would probably divide the gun-owning public. I think that's a fair assessment.

The idea that the existence of arguments which seem reasonable from the pro-gun perspective is equivalent to the existence of sufficient public and political support to actually re-open the registry is not based in reality, IMO.

(Strangely enough, I can see even the antis getting on board with reopening the registry if it's presented as a "gun control" measure.)

That is, indeed, a very strange point of view, however I would characterize it as more in the category of extremely unrealistic and spectacularly optimistic than simply strange.

 

[somethingbenign]

This is all real good to hear. I wasn't even born yet. I didn't know there was ANY upside to FOPA. I will have to think on these pros and cons before I make any hard judgments on the usefulness. Something to consider though. You guys had all these workarounds before, don't we have the same thing now. Isn't that what bump stocks and other like devices exactly that?

Having milsurps and mail order ammo, especially some of the odd stuff, seems really appealing to me.

 

[AlexanderA]

GOD BLESS RONALD REAGAN AND FOPA!

Ronald Reagan was a passive actor in all of this. He would have vetoed the bill if the NRA had asked him to do so. McClure-Volkmer was not an Administration bill.

 

[Elkins45]

I had just graduated from college in 1986. The thought of scraping together $800 for an M16 and the tax stamp was almost laughable to me at that time. Being young and optimistic I assumed by the time I could afford a machine gun it would have been repealed. Guess I was wrong.....

I remember having ammo logged into a bound book, and I remember being surprised one day when there was an ad for reloading brass from Midway in a gun magazine. That was nice.

The interstate transport provision is significant, except for the fact that commie states like NJ and NY routinely ignore it. Thanks to FOPA you will probably beat the rap...but you won’t beat the ride very often.

 

[AlexanderA]

The idea that the existence of arguments which seem reasonable from the pro-gun perspective is equivalent to the existence of sufficient public and political support to actually re-open the registry is not based in reality, IMO.

OK, here's the argument to be made to people on the fence, and even to the antigunners: registered machine guns are tightly controlled, whereas unregistered machine guns are not. By having a closed registry, you encourage people to make illegal machine guns, or workarounds such as bump stocks. Bump stocks would never have been an issue if reasonably-priced machine guns had been available, even considering the hoops to be jumped through. Pre-1986, nobody was thinking about FA workarounds.

In fact, the bump stock controversy provides the perfect opportunity for re-examining the MG registry. We saw a hint of this in the NRA's formal response to the bump stock regulation comment period, in which they mentioned an amnesty. This response is known in the gun community, but hasn't gotten any larger press. Why isn't the NRA openly making the case to the public?