IN-DEPTH: ATF ‘Zero Tolerance’ Forces Nearly 2,000 Gun Vendors to Close, Says Lawsuit

Thank you my conservative friend and brother-in-Christ MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. for posting the perspective from theepochtimes.com [which I am also subscribed to] author Kevin Stocklin

Image: More Gun sales licenses revoked in 2022 than in any year since 2008
Hopefully this executive order will be held to unconstitutional

Background from the link you posted [theepochtimes.com/us/in-depth-atf-zero-tolerance-forces-nearly-2000-gun-vendors-to-close-says-lawsuit]Having failed to pass gun bans to curtail Americans’ purchases of firearms, the Biden administration appears now to be attempting to restrict the supply of guns, with a new “zero tolerance” policy at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that has put nearly 2,000 gun sellers out of business in the past two years, according to one lawsuit.
Starting in 2021, the ATF implemented an aggressive agenda in its inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), in many cases permanently revoking licenses over what defendants say are minor clerical errors.
“This is an end-around gun ban, because you start putting gun dealers out of business and now all of a sudden it’s very difficult for people to purchase firearms,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America (GOA), told The Epoch Times. GOA filed a lawsuit on July 11 against the Biden administration in response to the ATF’s zero-tolerance enforcement.
The GOA lawsuit is requesting that the courts issue an injunction to end the ATF’s zero tolerance policies and “declare that the [ATF] has acted unconstitutionally, arbitrarily, capriciously, and contrary to law, in the establishment of and/or application of standards for revocation of federal firearm licenses.”
According to the ATF, the agency revoked 88 FFL licenses in 2022, compared to five that were revoked in 2021.
But a recent GOA court filing states that, “in addition to revocations, ATF has coerced and intimidated an ever increasing number of FFLs into ‘voluntarily’ ceasing operations. In fact, the number of FFLs who discontinued business following a compliance inspection increased from 96 in 2020 to 789 in 2021 (the year that ‘zero tolerance’ was adopted) to 1,037 in 2022, an overall increase of more than 1,000%.”
The numbers the GOA cites correspond to investigations categorized by the ATF as “resolved as discontinued.”
“There is a clear animus in the written policies that the ATF pushes down on its employees that indicate this idea of, ‘We’re now going to attack the Second Amendment’ supply chain, since we’re unable to convince Congress to pass ‘assault weapons’ bans, high magazine bans or just bans in general,” John Harris, an attorney representing FFLs in their appeals of ATF licensing actions, told The Epoch Times.
Gun Dealers Close Doors at Record Rate
According to The Trace, the self-described “newsroom dedicated to covering gun violence,” “[ATF] investigators conducted just over 7,000 inspections in 2022, compared to more than 13,000 in 2019,” before the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed investigations.
Even with half the number of pre-pandemic investigations, however, “they revoked more licenses in the past fiscal year than in any year since 2008,” The Trace reported.

Clerical Errors Considered ‘Willful’ Violations
The GCA authorizes the ATF to revoke FFL licenses if record-keeping errors are “willful.”
According to the ATF’s website, “The GCA does not define ‘willful.’ The federal courts, however, have held that a willful violation of the GCA’s regulations occurs when the FFL commits the violation with an intentional disregard of a known legal duty or with plain indifference to their legal obligations … the courts have also held that a single willful violation of a GCA regulation is a sufficient basis for ATF to revoke an FFL’s license.”

In cases he has defended, Mr. Harris said, the ATF is considering even small errors in filling out Form 4473 to be “willfulness.”

“When you’re writing down a serial number, you may transpose two digits, or you may leave one out, or a 6 may look like a G,” Mr. Harris said. “There’s all kinds of errors that can happen that are completely innocent and have nothing to do with willfulness, but the ATF has developed this theory, and courts have allowed it, that says repeated errors are evidence of willfulness and therefore they’re a basis for revocations.”

“The ATF comes in and they say, ‘We gave you a manual years ago that you should have read, so any mistakes you make, no matter how minimal or clerical, they are willful violations,’” Mr. Pratt said. “It’s such an unrealistic standard; if it was applied to the ATF, they would be put out of business because they’ve been shown to make these errors too.”

One former FFL owner, quoted anonymously, said the tone between gun shops and ATF inspectors has changed dramatically in recent years. In the past, he said, the ATF worked with FFLs that were having problems to get them back into compliance, rather than shutting them down.

“We went from having a great relationship with our inspectors at the ATF to really just being in constant fear of what we see as a political retaliatory move against our business and our industry,” he said.

According to the ATF, “Each of the following qualifying violations which impact public safety will result in ATF issuing a notice of revocation, absent extraordinary circumstances: Refusal to allow an ATF inspection; transferring a firearm to a prohibited person; failing to conduct a required background check; falsifying records; or failing to respond to a trace request.”

Much of the decision-making process about revoking licenses has been taken away from the inspectors, who could make a judgment call about whether or not violations were intentional, according to Stephen Stamboulieh, an attorney at GOA. The ATF uses a computer system called Spartan, he said, in which ATF inspectors input any data on violations, and an algorithm decides the FFL’s fate.
Very few of the violations are intentional, Mr. Stamboulieh told The Epoch Times, “because they don’t want to go to jail and they don’t want to lose their license, their livelihood and their ability to put food on the table for their family.”
“I don’t know what else to say about zero tolerance, except it’s wrong and it’s especially wrong in situations like this, and it leads to stupid results,” he said. “And the ATF is revoking licenses left and right, all across the United States.”
Critics of the Biden administration’s zero tolerance policy also charge that it is being applied unevenly, targeting smaller family-owned shops that don’t have the money to defend themselves in court.
“They’re not putting the Palmetto State Arms out of business; here locally, they’re not putting the Shark Coast Tacticals out of business for non compliance,” a Florida gun dealer who asked to remain anonymous told The Epoch Times, referring to larger firearms dealers. “They’re putting the small guys out that don’t have the resources to fight.”
The GOA argues in its lawsuit that “the Second Amendment does not permit the wholesale elimination of commerce in arms, or its concentration in a few large and anti-gun multinational corporations (such as Walmart) that refuse to sell most guns aside from a few shotguns and bolt-action rifles.”

President Biden signs executive order aimed to reduce gun violence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-raqE1x1jQ
FYI SGT (Join to see) CPL Corey Aldridge CPT James E Amundsen SMSgt David A Asbury PO1 Howard Barnes CPT Bruce Beattie CMSgt Randy Beck A1C (Join to see) 2LT Christopher Allen SGT Leigh Barton 1LT Larry Bass SFC Greg Bruorton PV2 Stephen Bukucs CPT (Join to see) CW5 Jack Cardwell GySgt Gary Cordeiro TSgt Joe C.SSG (Join to see) SPC Nancy Greene

Lots of good video on this action. The length of time a FFL is held and prior good inspection results are now used against a FFL.

nothing like having the ATF and FBI breaking the law.