The Trump administration spent its first year dismantling one of the Biden administration’s most significant efforts to hold gun dealers accountable for violating federal law. According to a recent ProPublica investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) revoked just 56 federal firearms licenses in 2025, a 69-percent decline from the 183 revocations recorded the previous year. The Trump administration not only repealed the Biden-era “zero tolerance” policy under which the ATF revoked the licenses of gun dealers that willfully violate federal law in April 2025, but also encouraged those who had their licenses revoked to reapply for them.
These actions could allow some dealers with problematic compliance histories to return to selling firearms. Among the examples highlighted by ProPublica are an Arizona dealer that a federal judge found had repeatedly disregarded federal regulations and an Oregon dealer whose license application was denied because of a domestic violence conviction before the Trump administration reversed course.
Marianna Mitchem, a former ATF associate assistant director who oversaw gun dealer inspections nationwide, warned that the rollback comes after years of progress in combating firearms trafficking. Mitchem told ProPublica, “We were making incredible progress on trafficking, on violent crime.”
The Biden administration’s policies were aimed at addressing the reality that a relatively small number of gun dealers account for a disproportionate share of crime guns and that guns that are illegally trafficked are far more likely to be used in crimes. According to ATF data, of the 2.3 million firearms traced from crime scenes between 2017 and 2023, 87 percent were recovered from someone other than the original purchaser, a key indicator of trafficking. During that same period, stores sold nearly 1.3 million firearms to traffickers whose guns were later recovered in crimes. Under the now-rescinded enforcement policy, ATF officials increasingly focused on dealers that enabled trafficking by selling firearms to straw purchasers or repeatedly violated federal regulations.
Smokin’ Barrel Guns & Ammo
In 2021, 25-year-old Tylon Hardy was shot and killed in Middletown, Connecticut. According to ProPublica, investigators later determined that the firearm used in the shooting, a Taurus 9mm pistol, had been purchased just six days earlier from Smokin’ Barrel Guns & Ammo in Raleigh, North Carolina. The gun had traveled more than 600 miles from a state with comparatively weaker gun laws to one with stronger regulations.
Federal investigators used the firearm’s trace history to uncover what prosecutors later described as a trafficking conspiracy involving dozens of firearms purchased through straw purchasers in North Carolina. According to federal prosecutors, the scheme involved more than 100 firearms, 10 of which were eventually recovered at crime scenes in Connecticut and New Jersey.
Smokin’ Barrel did not lose its license because of the trafficking case. Instead, the store remained in business until the ATF revoked its federal firearms license in 2023 after determining that the owner sold a handgun to an 18-year-old woman despite North Carolina’s 21-year-old minimum age requirement for handgun purchases. The former owner told ProPublica that he had self-reported the violation.
While the trafficking investigation ultimately led to criminal convictions, the case illustrates why federal oversight of gun dealers remains critical. Investigators were able to identify and dismantle the trafficking network because they could trace the firearm back to the licensed dealer that originally sold it.
The Chambered Group
One of the clearest examples of the Trump administration’s reversal in the ProPublica piece involves an Arizona gun dealer whose license revocation had already been upheld by a federal court. In 2023, the ATF revoked the license of Chambered Group, a gun store located in Phoenix, Arizona, after four inspections conducted over five years uncovered repeated violations of federal gun regulations. When the company challenged the revocation, U.S. District Judge Steven Logan sided with the ATF, writing that the business had “purposefully disregarded” federal regulations by repeatedly violating the same requirements despite being given multiple opportunities to correct its conduct.
The following year, one of the store’s co-owners attempted to obtain a new federal firearms license through a separate business called Chambered Custom Firearms. The ATF blocked the application, citing the owner’s connection to the revoked dealership. That changed after President Trump returned to office. According to ProPublica, the Department of Justice entered settlement discussions involving the Arizona case, and the ATF subsequently informed the court that Chambered Custom Firearms had submitted a new application that the agency would “expeditiously process.” The agency ultimately issued the license in July 2025.
The case demonstrates how drastically federal policy has shifted in such a short period of time. A dealer whose license revocation had survived judicial review under the Biden administration was ultimately permitted to reenter the firearms business after the Trump administration abandoned the previous enforcement approach.
South Valley Firearms
A similar reversal occurred in Oregon. South Valley Firearms, located in Monroe, Oregon, challenged the ATF’s 2024 denial of the owner’s license renewal application. According to ProPublica, the denial stemmed from the owner’s prior domestic violence conviction. The dealer filed suit in federal court after the application was rejected.
Although the Department of Justice initially defended the denial, the Trump administration later informed the dealer’s attorney that the government would allow the owner to reapply for his license. According to the attorney, federal officials offered no explanation for the reversal. The attorney told ProPublica, “They just said, ‘Have him resubmit his application and we’ll give it to him.’”
A Broader Retreat from Dealer ACCOUNTABILITY
The stories of these three dealers come amid a broader retreat from federal gun trafficking enforcement. ProPublica reported that ATF referrals for trafficking-related charges declined during the first year of the Trump administration, while large numbers of ATF personnel were redirected toward immigration enforcement activities. Former ATF officials warn that the consequences of today’s enforcement decisions may not become apparent for years. Trafficked firearms often take years to surface at crime scenes, meaning the effects of reduced oversight may lag behind policy changes.
Mitchem warned that weakening anti-trafficking efforts does not stop firearms from moving into illegal markets. “Just because no one is watching the trafficking pipelines right now doesn’t mean guns aren’t flowing through it,” she said. “It just means they’re not being intercepted.”
License revocations under the Biden-era served two purposes: removing dealers that repeatedly violated federal law and sending a message to the rest of the industry that compliance failures would have consequences. Mitchem believes the consequences of the administration’s policy shift may take years to fully materialize. “As you walk away from that, and you don’t have your focus on that anymore,” she told ProPublica, “that pipeline is going to be flowing, and we are going to start to see the violent crime impact from that over time.”
For dealers such as the Chambered Group and South Valley Firearms, the shift has already produced tangible benefits. For communities affected by gun trafficking and gun violence, former ATF officials warn the consequences of the rollback may still be ahead.