The Gun Control Act allows the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives one option:
"We giveth a license. We take it away, through the revocation process, which involves due process," said Adam Rogers, the ATF's director of Industry Operations for Kentucky.
But the ATF revokes very few licenses of firearms dealers.
More than 132,000 FFLs (Federal Firearms License holders) operate in the U.S. The ATF revoked 88 licenses in 2022 — three of those were in Kentucky, including one in Louisville .
Those 88 dealers make up less than .1% of the industry
Some FFLs stop their license voluntarily after an inspection. Since 2024, only four Kentucky FFLs have taken that route, including two in Louisville .
So what is the process of revoking a license, and what does it take for a firearms dealer to get their license revoked?
One is defined. The other revolves around the legal term "willful violation."
For subscribers: 'High time to crime': Why these Kentucky gun dealers are on the ATF's radar
The process to revoke a license from a firearms dealer
Here's an example of how a license could come to be revoked:
- A licensee is inspected by one of the ATF's Industry Operations Inspectors (IOI);
- IOI finds violations that are a public risk and recommends license revocation;
- That recommendation is reviewed through the chain of command;
- The ATF sends a Notice of Revocation letter to the licensee;
- The licensee can ask for a hearing, which includes IOI and ATF's director of industry operations;
- The director of industry operations makes a decision. If they agree with the revocation, they send a final notice of willful violations;
- The license is revoked at the agency level
- The licensee can still take their case to federal court.
How many violations does it take to revoke a firearms license?
A violation can come from a number of things, including not doing background checks or not having a complete Form 4473, which is the federal form a purchaser fills out when buying a firearm.
But the violation must be "willful."
"A willful violation is they either should have known or they were indifferent to, and they chose to go ahead and transfer a firearm to somebody who was prohibited under law of having it," said Louisville ATF Special Agent in Charge Shawn Morrow. "They didn’t respond to a trace request. They did not do a background check at all when they transferred that gun. Those are the types of things that will trigger a revocation."
Is there a threshold or a certain number of violations that must occur?
"Generally, we don’t work in percentages in that realm," said Rogers, the ATF director of Industry Operations. "It could be one and done. Again, the law allows us to revoke a license. And the courts have upheld that we can revoke on one willful violation."
Data: Kentucky gun dealers on the ATF's Demand Letter 2 list, 2015-23
S tephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. She can be reached at skuzydym@courier-journal.com . Follow her for updates at @stephkuzy .
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: How does the ATF revoke a firearm dealers' license? Here's the way it works
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