ATF Has Our Backs
Yes, despite the ATF’s desire to eliminate all firearms, they do have our backs as FFLs.
As example #1, in 2016, a friend of mine who owned a gun store in central Florida had a patron enter his store who was wearing a T-shirt displaying images of death and bloodshed.
My friend told the patron he was not going to sell him a gun. The patron asked why.
Paraphrasing, my friend responded with “It’s because of your shirt. Your shirt screams of death and violence, and I, in all good conscience, do not want to hear on the news that you became a mass shooter because I sold you a gun. Please leave.”
In example #2, also in 2016, this same friend put a sign in the front window of his store which read “Muslim Free Zone,” because he got pissed off that many of the country’s mass shootings, like San Bernardino, were perpetrated by radical Muslim extremists. This action of placing this sign at the window nearest the front door pissed off many people including the Muslim president of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR attempted to have my friend arrested for inciting violence, or some trumped up charge. But the U.S. Attorney for Central Florida told the media she cannot prosecute because my friend was exercising his 1st Amendment right. So, then CAIR attempted to sue my friend for discrimination.
Just before the case came to trial, the FBI and ATF visited my friend at his store and told him they needed to put him in protective custody. They said they monitored a known hit man on a flight from L.A. to Orlando, presumably to assassinate my friend. They put my friend in body armor and hustled him out the door into protective custody. Later, the feds discovered CAIR did not order the hit. But because the sign in the window attracted national media attention, some crazed lunatic who did not like the sign’s message thought it best if my friend were eliminated. BTW, my friend won the case and beat the largest injury law firm (ambulance chasers) in the country.
In example #3, in May or early June of 2016, a Muslim man entered this same friend’s store in Central Florida. My friend’s Spidey senses started tingling, sensing there was something wrong with this man, and he asked the man to leave. My friend later found out this Muslim man was Omar Mateen, the person responsible for the horrific mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 13, 2016. I don’t know if Spidey-senses could be used as evidence in court. My friend also discovered through a dialogue with the ATF that my friend’s store was the first of three stores this a**hole patronized. The owner of the third store sold him the gun that did all that carnage. My friend’s conscience was clear that he did not have anything to do with the massacre.
So, we, as FFLs, are under no obligation to sell firearms to anyone and everyone, despite them passing their background checks. If you decide not to sell firearms to a person and would not feel right doing so, the ATF will have your back.
