National Association of Arms Shows, Inc.

New information added January, 2004

EDITORIAL

For years the trade has been frustrated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("BATF")

refusal to budge on its position prohibiting face-to-face transfers at gun shows despite the absence of legislative backing. Since 1996, NAAS representatives and counsel have worked hard to change BATF’s policy. Then, in the Spring and Summer of 2003, these efforts showed signs of paying off when NAAS representatives started to work closely with Representative Rick Rains (R-AZ) to refine language that would once and for all allow Federal Firearms Licensees ("FFL") to transfer firearms face-to-face when away from their licensed places of business.

The hard work culminated on July 25, 2003, when Congressman Rains introduced H.R. 2906, a bill to clarify that federally licensed firearms dealers may transfer firearms to other federally licensed firearms dealers at places other than the business premises specified on the license of the transferor dealer. As this editorial goes to print, H.R. 2906 has taken on 22 co-sponsors, but your help is urgently needed to gather many, many more. The reasoning behind the bill is so logical that a new federal gun law really should not be required. However, because BATF has for the past 20 years refused to acknowledge the reasonableness of this position, legislation is desperately needed.

Before the enactment of the 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA68) individuals could legally purchase firearms by mail with no restrictions. As a result of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Congress enacted the sweeping federal law that prohibited, among other things, the sale of firearms by mail and the purchase of firearms interstate. The result was that federally licensed firearms dealers were no longer permitted to ship or transport firearms interstate to non licensed purchasers. Those dealers were only allowed to sell or deliver to non-licensed purchasers who resided in the same state as the licensed seller. However, GCA68 did not restrict dealer-to-dealer firearms sales , including sales across state lines.

To implement the record keeping requirements of GCA68 the BATF enacted regulations requiring record keeping of all acquisitions and disposals of firearms by federally licensed dealers. One of the regulations required that such records be kept at the licensees premises available for government inspection, BATF’s 1969 Rev. Rul. 69-59 stated that a licensee may take orders for firearms off premises at a gun show or other venue but the sale and delivery must be made at the dealers premises. Thus, a gun dealer could sell any firearm to another dealer or a non-licensed customer but had to ship the firearm from his premises to the buyers premise, even if the buyer was a resident of the same state as the dealer.

In 1984, BATF modified those regulations to allow licensed dealers to sell firearms at gun shows and other venues away from the licensed premises, but only so long as the venue and the licensed premises were within the same state. For some unknown reason BATF created the state boundary limitation for dealers, a boundary that never existed in GCA68. Since then, BATF has turned a deaf ear to the argument that section 923 of GCA68 does not, now was it ever intended to, define state boundaries as limitation for FAL’s. It has refused to agree with the logic that if off-premise sales between dealers within a state are permissible, there is no difference between dealer to dealer off-premises sales when the dealers come from different states.

The legality of this unmodified regulation is questionable. Although the Freedom of Information Act requires every Federal agency to publish rules of general applicability and statements of policy or interpretations of generally applicability, BATF has never published a rule prohibiting off-premises sales and deliveries of firearms between FFL’S.

The absence of an official rule has not gone unnoticed in the courts. In the 1992 case of United States v. Douglas, for example, the Ninth Circuit commented on the fact that BATF’s policy is not based on any published rule, saying: "Although the government argues that BATF policy requires such a maneuver [the California licensed dealer transporting firearms to a Nevada licensee by first taking the firearms back to California and then mailing them to Nevada], so we can find no publication of such a rule in the Code of Federal Regulations and Douglas cannot be convicted of violating unmodified BATF policy."

The passage of H.R. 2096 would accomplish many needed reforms for dealers who conduct business at gun shows, including the following:

1. Permit immediate face-to-face sales and/or transfers between federally licensed firearms dealer of all categories of firearms.

2. Cease the necessity for transporting sold firearms back to dealers premises, thereby eliminating the risk of theft or damage to firearms during shipment.

3. Stop BATF from enforcing a policy that is unmodified.

In addition, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that adoption of this legislation would not compromise the integrity of GCA68 scheme of control over firearms. Despite what some opponents may argue, H.R. 2096 would NOT result in the following scenarios:

1. Change the premise license or the necessary requirements to comply with that license.

2. Permit issuance of licenses for the sole purpose of enabling the licensee to transact business

away from the license premises. In other words, licensees would continue to be required to

maintain a licensed premise at permanent locations where business is conducted.

3. Restrict BATF’s power to inspect dealer records. Records required under GCA68 and inventories

would continue to be subject to inspection.

4. Impair the Government’s ability to trace firearms involved in a crime or alleviate obligations of licensees to respond to requests to trace firearms involved in crimes.

5. Impair the ability of the States to enforce their own firearms laws.

H.R. 2096 is three decades overdue and the time has come for everyone, especially federally license gun dealers, gun show promoters, gun show attendees, and gun owners everywhere to join together and pass this very modest but much needed legislation. There is no reason that every Representative and Senator should not be a co-sponsor of this legislation. It doesn’t make it easier for anyone to buy a gun; It just means that properly licensed dealers would be able to deliver a firearm to another properly licensed dealer directly at shows and other lawful locations. So write, email and phone your elected official NOW and express your support for H.R. 2096!