Live Q&As

Hi there - thanks much for reading. The point of today's story was not to link stores to gun trafficking, but to explore the licensing laws and show what happens in some cases when violations that threaten public safety (whether related to gun trafficking or not) go uncorrected, and the ATF finally revokes a store's license (fairly rare event). As we had in the story, of the ones that were revoked and then relicensed, ATF records that we obtained show that about 1/3 of those new, replacement licensees have gone on to have additional violations, and 1/4 have been warned by the ATF that the violations, if uncorrected, would potentially lead to revocation of these new licenses.  Some, on the other hand have not logged additional violations. And, quite a few of these shops, records indicate, have yet to be reinspected. This is a broader problem for the ATF - inadequate manpower to inspect licensees on a more timely schedule. Licensees complain, and rightly so, about not seeing inspectors for many many years, which does not help them if they are looking for guidance on what they are doing right or wrong.

Hi there, yes, the ATF publishes quite a bit of paper pertaining to the rules and regulations that dealers have to follow, gun sales requirements, reporting requirements, record-keeping requirements, etc.  Dealers are supposed to have copies of all this material. 

Yes, I am also aware of FFLGuard and that some dealers participate in the program. Generally, based on what I know, that is the goal of the program -- they work with dealers to help them to proactively do more than the bare minimum required by law to avoid any problems and stay in compliance.  As an aside, I can tell you that the vast majority of dealers want to do just this. They care about complying with the law and being responsible with regard to their merchandise. It is very rare for the ATF to revoke a license and typically involves many many years of uncorrected violations that the ATF feels threaten public safety. To put a revocation in perspective, there are roughly 60,000 dealers and about 110 revocations a year, less than 1/4 of 1 percent.

Thanks for reading. I don't know how practical or popular that would be, but you can sure write your local lawmakers and suggest that.

The work on the Post investigation, The Hidden Life of Guns, began in 2009, based upon an idea by investigative editor Jeff Leen. Jeff has been talking about doing something looking at guns for as long as James has been on the investigative team, going back ten years. In late 2008, he decided to jump in. It ended up taking longer than any of us expected, but then we are all on call for a variety of breaking news stories and assignments that occur while we work on projects. (Cheryl W. Thompson took time off the project to fill in at the White House, for example.) All of us on the project have done other things during that time.

Jeff's idea was to take a look at the 2003 Congressional act to exempt crime-gun data from the Freedom of Information Act. Part of our jobs as investigative reporters is to uncover secrets. We broke the secrecy imposed by the congressional act and learned about stores who had many guns traced back from crime scenes both locally in the Washington area and nationally. 

The Milwaukee paper has done very good work, particularly about Badger gun store, and we encourage people to check them out.

We went with what the ATF has said in interviews, congressional testimony and through reports published by the U.S. General Accountability Office, Congressional Research Service and the Department of Justice's Inspector General's Office.

Hi there,

I don't know what the "typical" Washington Post reporter is. We have a very diverse group of writers with a wide range of interests and backgrounds. I love the outdoors and grew up in Oklahoma where I spent a lot of time fishing and around hunters (though I am not a hunter, myself). As a kid, we always had a gun in the house growing up because of my father's career as a district attorney.  I spent time at a gun range not too long ago trying out a Glock 9 mm and had a great time!

You present the arguments against the bill pretty well, and the ATF and several former ATF directors strongly oppose the bill. The NRA, gun dealers and the industry want the bill because they feel that the ATF tries to sanction them for petty infractions and paperwork errors.

Thanks for weighing in. A day at the range would require hundreds of purchases, so could be problematic.

Sari is not related to Josh Horwitz, and has never met him or talked to him. 

James and Sari wrote a story today quoting Dick DeGuerin, Carter's attorney, about the grand jury investigation into a salesman at Carter's Country. James talked to Bill Carter twice -- in person -- and asked him for a comment. Carter referred him to Bill Book, his civil lawyer, whom James called and left phone messages. Mr. Book did not return the calls. Mr. Carter never mentioned DeGuerin. If Mr. Carter had done so, James would have called him. Today's story says that Carter's Country is cooperating with the ATF, according to DeGuerin. 

The criminal grand jury investigation into Carter's Country began in January.

The Post is only reporting the facts as we get them. We pursued the list of stores that had the most traces to Mexico. We had no pre-conceived notions about what we would find. When we got the list, we researched the  dealers thoroughly and interviewed most of them to get their sides of the story.

Yes, many of the stores on the national list have a high-volume of sales. The ATF uses other indicators to check on the stores, such as what they call "time to crime." Time to crime is the time from purchase to when it is recovered by police. Our story includes comments from the gun dealers about how they think they got on the list.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202667.html

Hi there,

I have no idea where our reporting will take us, but we worked very hard to include the varied and diverse perspectives of the dealers at every juncture. In today's story, I specifically included quotes and an anecdote from a dealer who alleged he was written up by the ATF over clerical errors.

I can tell you that in interviews with former ATF officials,  they say the ATF has taken steps over the past 5-6 years to improve enforcement consistency nationwide, i.e. to make sure that standards are applied evenly region to region when it comes to writing up dealers for violations and moving to revoke licenses. The uneveness in enforcement (that I think has led to complaints like those you are citing) is somethign that former ATF officials have recognized and tried to address over the last half of this decade. What would help this is if the ATF could get dealers on a more routine inspection schedule, but this requires more manpower.

I think dealers have a very valid point when they complain about not being inspected for eight years at a stretch. Without a visit from an inspector, the dealer doesn't get any guidance or reinforcement.

We are planning a story that looks at the NRA.  You are representing, certainly, one side of this very contentious issue. The other side would disagree, of course.

Thanks for your comments.

That is a good question - I am not sure about that, it may depend on the state in question and what is required. In Virginia, for example, gun shows typically feature licensed dealers selling alongside hobbyists.

Good point. I am glad you asked --  There is no minimum amount of time according to the law that a dealer is forced out of business. In other words, a dealer who is revoked could reapply the next day. However, if it is the same "applicant' and he or she does this, it would be fairly easy for the ATF to deny the application because there is no question that is the same entity, and they have an easy case to make to reject it. 

I saw some cases where the exact same people reapplied and were given a new license, but it typically it followed a year or two out of the business.

As far as having someone else apply for the license, that was the whole crux of the story today -- if it is a different "applicant," the ATF by law must approve the license. No discretion, they say. Even if they suspect it is a strawman situation, they have to prove it legally with evidence to deny the application. This basically means showing that the former person who lost their license is still in control and running the show behind the scenes (not just working at the shop in some other capacity, etc). Given the laws, this is extremely difficult and time consuming because the ATF has no authority (unless a case goes to court) to probe deeply into an applicant's financial structure.