The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has released more data highlighting the agency’s efforts to shut down gun dealers who willfully violate federal law as part of the Biden administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. The data shows that the agency is currently on track to revoke as many dealer licenses in 2024 as it did in 2023, which is significantly more than in previous years.
In August, the ATF published data showing that inspectors found violations in nearly one in five gun dealer inspections in fiscal year 2023.
Announced in June 2021, the “zero tolerance” policy tasked the ATF with revoking the licenses of gun dealers who willfully violate federal law. Such “qualifying violations” include transferring a firearm to a prohibited person, failing to run a required background check, falsifying records, failing to respond to an ATF tracing request, or refusing to permit the ATF to conduct an inspection. Since the policy was first announced, gun groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation have railed against it — calling it an attack on the gun industry and attempting to downplay serious violations as “minor infractions.”
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a closer look at the data
The ATF’s updated Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement Policy page now includes information from the first half of 2024, building upon the data the agency provided for July to December 2021, 2022, and 2023. Below are key highlights:
From January through June 2024:
- The ATF found qualifying violations during inspections at 197 Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs). This rate of violations for the first half of 2024 is largely on pace with the number of violations found in 2023, where the ATF found 402 inspections with qualifying violations during the full year.1These figures do not include inspections that the ATF deemed to involve extraordinary circumstances and warranted warning conferences in lieu of revocation.
- The 2023 figure represented a 68% increase over the 240 inspections with qualifying violations in 2022.
- Of those 197 dealers where violations were found, 81 (41%) had their licenses revoked, or 14 per month on average.
- The ATF revoked the licenses of 157 dealers in 2023 (roughly 13 per month), representing an 80% increase over the 88 revocations of 2022 (which had an average of 7.3 revocations per month).
- 81 dealers (41%) requested hearings to challenge the violations uncovered during inspections and subsequently did not have their licenses revoked.
- 35 dealers (18%) voluntarily surrendered their licenses and ceased operating after ATF inspections found qualifying violations.
Results of Inspections with Qualifying Violations by Year
Results of Inspections with Qualifying Violations by MONTH
GReATER TRANSPARENCY
In announcing the “zero tolerance” policy, the Biden administration called on the ATF to provide the public “with additional data to promote transparency and accountability in enforcement of federally licensed firearms dealer policies.” The data provided by the ATF is indeed a significant step forward in that regard.
However, while the ATF has released the names and inspection records of the 186 gun dealers who either had their licenses revoked or voluntarily surrendered them from July 2021 through 2022 — giving the public a better look at some of the damning violations uncovered, as discussed here — the agency has yet to provide more information about the 238 dealers who had their licenses revoked, or the 115 who voluntarily surrendered them, in 2023 and 2024. There is no explanation on the ATF website as to why such data is not readily available to the public. These inspection records may prove useful for officials, law enforcement agencies, and researchers invested in securing the firearm supply chain.