Top 10 Violations

According to the ATF, below are the top 10 FFL violations impacting public safety

And how FFLAssist addresses these violations

1. Failure to obtain an ATF Form 4473 (Firearms Transaction Record) when required.
   1. FFLAssist allows you to sell firearms. However, sales are prohibited unless the customer has completed a Form 4473 tied to the specific firearm they intend to purchase, unless the sale is to another FFL. This forces you, as the dealer, to ensure Form 4473 gets completed before any sales attempt.

2. Failure to obtain a complete and correct ATF Form 4473.
   1. FFLAssist identifies all missing, incorrect, or incomplete data required on Form 4473 and allows corrections prior to certification. Examples, missing birth dates and driver’s license numbers are identified prior to both the dealer and the customer signing the form, allowing corrections to be made.
   2. Once the Form 4473 has been certified by both you, the dealer, and the customer, all information is locked down.

3. Failure to conduct an FBI or State background check PRIOR to the transfer of a firearm.
   1. FFLAssist contains hyperlinks in Section C of the Form 4473, allowing you, the dealer, to navigate to the NICS (or appropriate State) website to conduct the background checks without deviating from the form, and prohibits certification if the responding transaction number is blank.

4. Failure to obtain appropriate identification documents prior to the transfer of a firearm.
   1. FFLAssist has the ability for you, the dealer, to attach photocopies of the customer’s driver’s license to Form 4473. Simply take a picture of the license with your phone and upload the photo as an attachment to the appropriate Form 4473. Or better yet, invest in a small ID scanner and scan the customer’s driver’s license number. Save the scanner output as a JPG file and attach it to the 4473. This also works well when the customer is from one state and has crossed over into another state to purchase a firearm. Some states prohibit this type of transaction unless the customer has a residence in the purchasing state. In such cases, simply scan two sets of government-issued IDs, one from the home state and one from the purchasing state, and attach both to the 4473.

5. Failure to record complete and accurate Acquisition and Disposition information.
   1. FFLAssist allows you, the dealer, to purchase firearms, either as a purchase order from your distributors or as a purchase in a private sale. Upon finalizing the purchase order or private purchase and the recording of the firearm’s serial number, FFLAssist automatically creates the Acquisition record in your Bound Book.
   2. FFLAssist allows you, the dealer, to sell firearms. Upon finalizing the sale by capturing the firearm’s serial number and after collecting payment, FFLAssist automatically creates the Disposition record in your Bound Book. However, this automatic Disposition creation only occurs if 1) the customer is not another FFL and 2) the firearm being sold is tied to a Form 4473 (attempted sales without a completed Form 4473 for the firearm in question are not permitted), and 3) the customer passes their background check. The disposition on the Bound Book does not occur until the sale is final and the customer’s credit card has been processed. This is to allow the customer to back out of the deal prior to running through their credit card, despite passing a background check.

6. Failure to report the sale of multiple handgun and/or certain rifles, if required.
   1. FFLAssist automatically pops up a message to the processing dealer if an ATF Form 3310 (multiple firearm sales) is required, if the customer is purchasing multiple firearms from the same dealer within a five (5) day period.

7. Failure to report lost or stolen firearms.
   1. FFLAssist permits you, the dealer, to identify, flag, and remove from inventory any firearms lost or stolen. Lost or stolen firearms are recorded in the Bound Book. It is still up to you, as the dealer, to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement. FFLAssist merely flags the firearms in question.

8. Improper sale to a non-resident.
   1. FFLAssist prohibits sales and shipments to out-of-state residents, unless the out-of-state resident is another FFL. FFLAssist also prohibits shipments to in-state residents, forcing all in-state residents to pick up their firearm in person at your place of business, which allows you and the customer to complete a Form 4473.

9. Providing false information.
   1. FFLAssist generates an error on Form 4473 if the customer’s ID has expired or if the customer is under age. It cannot match the photo on their ID to their face, but as mentioned above, the ID can be scanned and attached to the Form 4473.
   2. It will be up to you, as the dealer, to ask the customer why the address on their ID is different than the response provided during the background check.
   3. There is also another highly beneficial aspect of FFLAssist, and that is for you, the dealer, to place comments about what is happening with respect to a customer’s firearm purchase directly associated with the corresponding 4473. The ability to add comments can make or break your compliance audit, because I guarantee you will not remember a particular scenario from three years ago. So, to have the ability to pull up a comment about the transaction can be very beneficial. With these comments, there is the ability to place the first five (5) comment lines into box 32 of page three (3) of Form 4473.

10. Sale or transfer to a prohibited person.
    1. FFLAssist generates an error and stops the Form 4473 certification process if any of the “Yes/No” questions are answered wrong. The message displayed to the customer is “Please see your dealer…”
    2. You, as the dealer, are not permitted to coach customers as to which answer they should provide. You can only answer their questions on the mechanics of how to answer the question.
    3. It will be up to you, as the dealer, to question the customer why they answered the question in the manner in which they did. If you feel the customer’s answer is legitimate and believable, you can instruct the customer to run the “Section B Correction” wizard. The effect of this wizard is the same as having the customer cross off the wrong answer, check the correct answer, and initial the revised answer on paper copies of the 4473.
    4. The customer will be completing Section B electronically in a kiosk mode, whereby they are prompted to answer each “Yes/No” question, followed by them clicking a “Next” button to page through the questions. If the customer has a question about how to answer one of the “Yes/No” questions, instruct them to hover the computer mouse over the question wording (caption), which pops up the rules on the screen as identified on Form 4473 about that question.
    5. FFLAssist requires each of the three sections, A, B and C, to be completed in order.
    6. However, should a customer’s background check return a status of “denied”, it will be up to you, as the dealer, to give that signed Form 4473 to law enforcement for further investigation into the “denied” status. FFLAssist does not prohibit you, as the dealer, from handing the firearm to the customer and allowing the customer to leave with a firearm.