ATF Raided My Gun Store This Morning
The morning started like any other. You opened the shop, turned on the lights, started brewing coffee. Then federal agents were at your door. ATF badges. Search warrant. Twenty agents swarming through your inventory, seizing firearms, packing up your computers, photographing every corner of the business you spent years building.
Your life just split into two tracks - and both of them lead to destruction.
Most gun store owners don't understand what's actually happening in those chaotic first hours. This isn't a compliance inspection. This isn't a warning visit. When ATF executes a search warrant on your gun store, they're building two cases simultaneously - one to take your license, and potentially another to put you in federal prison. What you do in the next 15 days determines whether you lose your business, your freedom, or both. Welcome to Spodek Law Group. We handle ATF investigations and FFL defense in federal court. If agents showed up at your store this morning, this article explains exactly what you're facing and what choices still exist.
What Happens in the First 24 Hours After the Raid
Everything gets seized. Your entire firearms inventory, your computers, your bound books, every Form 4473 you ever filed. Those records you kept meticulously for compliance purposes? They're now evidence. The agents load it all into trucks while you stand there trying to figure out what just happened.
ATF revoked 195 FFL licenses in fiscal year 2024 - the highest number in 20 years according to federal data. That's up from 173 in FY2023, 90 in FY2022, and an average of just 41 per year from 2015 to 2021. The revocation rate hit 2.3% of inspected dealers. This isn't random enforcement. Its systematic.
But heres what nobody tells you in that first chaos.
Two seperate proceedings now exist. The administrative track - where ATF pursues license revocation. And the criminal track - where the US Attorney's Office decides whether to charge you with federal crimes. Diffrent rules. Different standards of proof. Different consequences. And both of them using the same evidence. Your evidence. The records you created.
The same Form 4473 errors that trigger administrative revocation can become the basis for federal criminal charges under 18 USC 922. Willful violations carry up to 5 years per count. Multiple violations on multiple forms? The exposure adds up fast. And everything you say during the administrative process can be used in the criminal case.
Consider what happend at Skelton Tactical in Osage Beach, Missouri. ATF executed a federal search warrant at 8:30 AM. Agents seized all firearms, computers, and records. The owner had over 200 prior infractions cited during inspections. He called the raid a "constitutional violation." Wheather or not that's true, his business was effectivley over.
The 15-Day Window That Determines Everything
When ATF decides to revoke your license, they issue a Notice of Revocation - ATF Form 4500. It arrives with a list of violations and a statement of intent to revoke.
You have exactly 15 days to demand a hearing. Miss that deadline, and your license is automaticly gone.
The clock starts when you recieve the notice, not when you "get around to reading it." There are no extensions. No excuses that will be accepted. No second chances. Most dealers dont even know this deadline exists until there lawyer tells them they've already missed it.
If you demand the hearing within 15 days, you get to appear before the Director of Industry Operations in your ATF field division. You'll face ATF Counsel plus the IOIs - Industry Operations Investigators - who conducted the inspection that led to this. Your job at that hearing is to prove the violations weren't "willful."
And heres were it gets dangerous.
ATF defines "willfulness" as intentional disregard of a known legal duty OR plain indifference to your legal obligations. Notice the "or." It doesn't require intent to break the law. Just indifference. And willfulness can be demonstrated through repeat violations, large numbers of violations, or even one egregious violation like a sale to a prohibited person.
The practical effect is brutal. ANY prior warning from ATF - even a warning conference from years ago - transforms your next paperwork error into a "willful" violation. They warned you. You made mistakes again. Willful.
The zero-tolerance policy was reversed in April 2025 after legal challenges. But heres the paradox nobody mentions: cases already in the pipeline weren't automatically dismissed. Dealers who surrendered licenses or had them revoked under zero-tolerance "may reapply" according to ATF's website. But the revocations themselves stand. And the enforcement culture that produced those revocations is still baked into how IOIs are trained to build cases.
This is were most gun store owners make the fatal mistake. They think if they just explain what happened - the staffing problems, the busy season, the honest mistakes - ATF will understand. They try to cooperate there way out of it. They talk and talk and talk.
Why Your Own Records Are Being Used Against You
Every Form 4473 you carefully maintained for compliance purposes - those are now exhibits in the prosecution's case. The acquisition and disposition records you kept to prove you were following the rules - those are being compared against physical inventory to identify "missing" firearms. Serial number discrepancies. Entries that don't match. The compliance system you built now documents violations you didn't know you were committing.
Your bound book entries show when firearms came in and when they went out. The IOIs trace serialized assets to the book and vice versa. If there's a gun that should be in your inventory but isn't, that's a problem. If theres a gap in the records, that's a problem. If dates don't match, that's a problem.
One problematic firearms transfer can trigger multiple federal charges:
- Wire fraud - if payment crossed state lines (up to 20 years)
- Making false statements - 18 USC 1001 (up to 5 years)
- Conspiracy - if anyone else was involved in the transaction
- Money laundering - if proceeds were moved to different accounts
- The underlying 18 USC 922 violation itself
Combined maximum exposure: 30 years or more. Real case: Cory Daigle, a Federal Firearms Licensee in Boston, was convicted of trafficking, straw purchase conspiracy, and making false statements in FFL records. He signed Form 4473s knowing the buyer was lying about being the actual purchaser. Sentenced: 2 years federal prison plus 3 years supervised release.
The straw purchase statute - 18 USC 932 - now carries up to 15 years under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. If the firearm ends up used in a violent crime or drug trafficking, that jumps to 25 years. These weren't the penalties five years ago. The stakes have escalated dramaticaly.
What You Should Do Right Now
The hardest thing you'll hear today:
Stop talking. Stop explaining. Stop cooperating without counsel present.
Your instinct is to explain. You have nothing to hide. You're an honest business owner who made some paperwork mistakes in a complicated regulatory environment. If you just help them understand what happened, they'll see you're not a criminal.
That instinct will destroy you.
During an inspection-turned-investigation, everything you say is documented by the IOI. They're trained to elicit admissions of willfulness. That casual explanation of why you forgot to record a serial number? It becomes evidence you "knew" the requirement and "intentionally disregarded" it. Your cooperativeness becomes your confession.
There have been cases where dealers who talked without counsel ended up charged with obstruction or making false statements to federal agents - on top of the underlying violations. The agents seem friendly. Conversational. There not on your side.
When Your Ready
If ATF raided your gun store this morning - or this week - Spodek Law Group can help you understand where you stand and what options remain.
The consultation is free. Theres no obligation. No judgment about what happened.
What you'll get is an honest assessment of your situation. Has criminal referral already happened or is it still just administrative? What's your 15-day timeline? Are there violations ATF can prove were willful, or is there a defense based on lack of intent? What are realistic outcomes - not best-case fantasies, but actual possibilities based on how these cases play out in federal court?
Call us at 888-997-4071. The 15-day window is absolutley critical. Once it closes, your options narrow dramaticaly. The earlier you have counsel, the more leverage exists to fight for your license, negotiate a resolution, or prepare a defense if criminal charges are coming.
Your gun store is your livelihood. Your freedom is your life. Don't let one bad morning cost you both.
Were here when you need us.
