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Committee approves measure easing penalties for some FFL clerical errors, prompting sharp debate
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Summary
The House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved HR 3770, the Firearm Act, a measure proponents said protects federally licensed dealers from losing their licenses over clerical errors, while opponents said it would open loopholes for dealers who intentionally divert guns to criminals.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced HR 3770, the Firearm Act, after heated debate over whether the bill would make criminal prosecutions or administrative enforcement harder for federally licensed firearm dealers who “willfully” violate federal law.
Sponsor Representative Darrell Issa and supporters said the bill responds to an ATF enforcement approach that, they argue, used regulatory leverage to revoke Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) for technical errors. The bill includes procedures that would allow licensees to self-report certain curable violations and gives a 30-business-day window in which to correct those violations before certain enforcement actions proceed. The bill also creates definitions intended to distinguish inadvertent clerical mistakes from deliberate criminal conduct.
Opponents, led by Representative Jamie Raskin and other Democrats, criticized the measure as granting amnesty to bad-actor dealers. They said narrowing the definition of "willfulness" and adding self-reporting and 30-day protections could allow dealers who repeatedly failed to follow the law to continue operating and might hamper ATF's ability to remove dealers that supply crime guns. Raskin cited statistics included in debate that a small share of dealers are responsible for a large share of crime guns (committee testimony referenced the figure that about 5% of dealers account for about 90% of recovered crime guns in some analyses).
Committee Republicans offered and accepted amendments clarifying that truly uncorrectable conduct (for example, knowingly transferring a firearm to a prohibited person) would remain outside the safe-harbor provisions. Democrats offered an amendment to exclude incidents where a firearm transferred by a licensee resulted in the death or injury of a law-enforcement officer; that amendment did not pass in committee.
Two technical amendments (including clarifying that failures to perform required background checks are uncorrectable) were taken during the markup; the committee also agreed to add language to ensure willful misconduct remained subject to enforcement. The committee adopted an amended substitute and reported the bill to the full House by recorded vote (committee transcript records the final tally as 15 ayes and 8 noes on a recorded vote for the amended substitute before the bill was reported favorably). Supporters say the bill incentivizes better recordkeeping and reduces business closures for clerical mistakes; opponents say it weakens enforcement tools against dealers who deliberately divert guns to the black market.
Ending: The bill, which passed committee on a recorded vote, is expected to prompt floor debate on enforcement standards for FFLs. Advocates for strict dealer oversight urged House and Senate consideration of additional guardrails, while small-business groups representing gun sellers supported the bill as a fix for what they described as overly punitive enforcement for minor paperwork errors.
