Which would you rexommend as a higher priority for the general hobbyist/enthusiast looking to take the next leap in commitment to the love of all things guns?
@SuperPredator can answer any questions you might have about becoming an FFL.
You’ll have to have an FFL to do some gunsmithing. Any firearms you’ll be holding overnight need to be logged in an acquisitions and depositions book. If nothing else, it will keep you covered in case someone claims they never got their gun back.
Plus, I’d suggest you get the FFL first. Doing transfers or even sales will give you a taste of what kind of customers you will have and how demanding of your time and energy being in the business of guns can be. You’ll be better able to gauge if gunsmithing will be worth the effort.
Excellent that is what I suspected. Thanks cor your candid feedback.
Is it apart of the approval process for friends, family, etc., to be contacted about your character & whatnot?
Nothing like that at all.
If so, we’d have a lot less FFLs.
Oh, no kidding?
For some reason I was under the impression there’s some kind of “investigation” into the character of the applicant.
Nooo. They do a background check on each responsible party listed on the application. If you can pass a background check to buy a gun, you can pass one to get an FFL.
They do an interview to see if you have all the proper permits to do business in your area; state, county, & city business licenses as applicable. They ensure you have specific safety measures to prevent theft (doors, locks, a safe) and to aid in recovery (cameras). They make sure you have storage solutions for your 4473s.
Then they go over some of the industry operations rulebook with you (training). This covers the basics of proper record keeping and rules of doing business as an FFL. But the training is only 2 hours long. It’s your responsibility to print the rest of the manual and learn it. It’s like 800 pages if I recall correctly. It’s a lot. If you have a question, you’re expected to check that book first before contacting them. It’s an unsearchable pdf file, so you actually have to read it to find what you need.
But no character interviews. Again, if they did those, we’d have a lot fewer FFLs.