Lethal Passage_ The Story of a Gun - Erik Larson [105]
♦ Provide, for the first time, an objective definition of what it means to be “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms. Any dealer who wished to retain his license would have to prove that in his first year of operation he had revenue from gun sales of $1,000 or more. As proof, he could simply file a duplicate of his dealership’s annual IRS filing.
♦ Establish a scale of penalties for failure to keep accurate records. If, for example, ATF discovered that a dealer had failed to record the disposition of firearms sought in three ATF traces conducted in any one year, ATF could immediately revoke his license, subject to administrative appeal. Any dealer who refused to cooperate with an ATF trace request, even once, would likewise lose his license.
♦ Require mandatory inspection of the business premises of all new licensees. The dealer’s license would remain provisional until the dealer passed such an inspection, or until six months had elapsed, whichever came first.
♦ Require that consumers who buy guns from private sellers fill out a form 4473, just as they would if buying from a licensed dealer. In this case the sellers would send a copy directly to their regional ATF office. (Notice I said regional office—the same place where multiple-purchase forms currently end up. I emphasize this to calm those who may be inclined to leap from their chairs and condemn this measure as an effort to build a central database of gun owners.) The actual transfer of the weapon would take place in the presence of a licensed dealer. Such a service would not be that different from the role now played by dealers who act as middlemen in mail-order sales of firearms. Consumers cannot receive mail-order firearms directly, but must designate a local dealer, who then formally transfers the weapon, keeps the form 4473, and records the transaction in his acquisition and disposition book. Dealers should not object to my proposal. The new purchaser is highly likely to turn around and buy ammunition and other accessories from the dealer.
♦ Require that ATF issue to licensed dealers a primary display license and a set of formal, embossed duplicates to be signed by the dealer and notarized before being mailed to the distributor. Distributors in turn would be required to verify the dealer’s license number and name before sending him any guns. A distributor would accomplish this by calling a toll-free number at ATF’s licensing center, punching in his own license number, waiting for a prompt, then entering the dealer’s number and name. A tone would signal that the license was valid. An ATF computer would keep a digital record of the call and file it for later retrieval when inspectors got around to doing their routine compliance audit of the distributor’s business. Manufacturers would likewise have to verify the license numbers of distributors.
The primary benefit of these distribution regulations would be to shrink the number of licensed dealers to a core group of those willing to take the time and energy to establish bona fide businesses. These dealers, in turn, would benefit from reduced competition and by capturing as customers those consumers who became kitchen-table dealers just to buy guns at wholesale prices. Dealers who remained in the business would have a greater incentive to keep good records and to turn away clearly questionable buyers. Private sellers too would be less inclined to sell their guns to such buyers. The measures, moreover, would greatly bolster the tracing network.
It would be unfair, of course, and exceedingly naive to expect that dealers would suddenly become priestly arbiters of firearms distribution, rejecting customers who looked felonlike or who sweated too much or whose eyebrows twitched a tad too often.
My law would at last remove from their shoulders the weighty burden of screening customers through a measure that many ardent gun owners tell me they would be more than willing to accept.…
II. PURCHASE
The Life and Liberty Preservation Act would require that all prospective gun buyers age twenty-one