18 U.S.C. § 923 — Licensing

(a) Nobody can be in the business of importing, making, or dealing in firearms, or importing or making ammunition, without first applying for and getting a license from the Attorney General. The application must use the form the Attorney General requires, ask only for information needed to check eligibility, and include a photo and fingerprints of the applicant. Each applicant pays a fee — a separate fee for each business location: (1) Manufacturers pay (A) $1,000 a year for destructive devices or their ammunition or armor-piercing ammunition, (B) $50 a year for other firearms, or (C) $10 a year for other ammunition. (2) Importers pay (A) $1,000 a year for destructive devices or their/armor-piercing ammunition, or (B) $50 a year for other firearms or ammunition. (3) Dealers pay (A) $1,000 a year for destructive devices or their ammunition, or (B) $200 for 3 years if they don't deal in destructive devices, with a $90-for-3-years renewal fee. (b) Anyone wanting a collector's license applies the same way, using a form the Attorney General sets that asks only for eligibility information. The fee is $10 a year, and this license only covers transactions in "curios and relics" (older or special-interest firearms). (c) After a proper application and fee payment, the Attorney General issues the license, letting the licensee ship, transport, and receive licensed firearms and ammunition across state or international lines during the license period. Licensed dealers, manufacturers, and importers can still keep and sell a personal firearms collection, but sales from that collection follow the same rules that apply to sales by non-licensees. If a licensee sells a gun from their personal collection within a year of moving it there from business inventory, or if the move was meant to dodge the licensing rules, that gun counts as business inventory instead. But a licensee who has held a gun in their personal collection for over a year, and then sells or gives it away, just has to record the buyer's name, address, and birth date (or, for a business buyer, its identity and locations) in a bound record book — no other recordkeeping is required. (d)(1) An application must be approved if: (A) the applicant is 21 or older; (B) the applicant — including, for a corporation, partnership, or association, anyone who controls it — isn't barred from shipping or receiving firearms or ammunition under section 922(g) or (n); (C) the applicant hasn't willfully broken any rule under this law; (D) the applicant hasn't willfully hidden required information or lied on the application; (E) the applicant has, or plans to soon have, business premises in a state (or, for a collector, premises for their collecting); (F) the applicant certifies that the business isn't banned by state or local law where it's located, that within 30 days of approval the business will meet state and local law requirements and won't operate under the license until it does, and that the applicant has sent a form (set by the Attorney General) to the local police chief saying they intend to apply for a federal license; and (G) for a dealer, the applicant certifies that secure gun storage or safety devices will be available wherever guns are sold to non-licensees — except that a temporary shortage of such devices, due to theft, damage, high sales, backorders, or similar reasons beyond the dealer's control, isn't a violation of this requirement. (2) The Attorney General must approve or deny the application within 60 days of receiving it. If that deadline is missed, the applicant can sue in federal court to force a decision. Once approved, the license is issued once the fee is paid. (e) The Attorney General can revoke a license, after notice and a chance for a hearing, if the holder willfully broke a rule under this law or fails to keep secure storage or safety devices available (same temporary-shortage exception as above). The Attorney General can also revoke a dealer's license if the dealer willfully transferred armor-piercing ammunition. Any such action by the Attorney General can only be reviewed the way subsection (f) allows. (f)(1) Anyone denied a license, or whose license is revoked, gets written notice from the Attorney General explaining specifically why — and notice of a revocation must arrive before the revocation takes effect. (2) The aggrieved person can request a hearing, which the Attorney General must promptly hold, at a location convenient to them; for a revocation, the Attorney General must pause the revocation's effective date if the holder asks. (3) If, after the hearing, the Attorney General doesn't reverse the decision, the person is notified and then has 60 days to file in the federal district court where they live or do business, for a full new review. The court can consider any evidence the parties submit, whether or not it came up at the hearing. If the court finds the Attorney General wasn't authorized to deny or revoke the license, it orders the Attorney General to fix that. (4) If someone is criminally charged with violating this law and is acquitted, or the charges are dropped for reasons other than a government request before trial, the Attorney General can never deny or revoke that person's license based on the same facts as those charges. No case to revoke a license can start more than one year after an indictment or information was filed. (g)(1)(A) Licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers must keep records of importing, making, shipping, receiving, selling, or otherwise disposing of firearms, in whatever form and for however long the Attorney General requires by regulation. They don't have to send the Attorney General reports about those records except as this section specifically requires. If the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe a violation happened and evidence might be on the premises, the Attorney General — after showing that cause to a federal magistrate judge and getting a search warrant — can enter during business hours to inspect required records and any firearms or ammunition stored there. (B) The Attorney General can inspect a licensed importer's, manufacturer's, or dealer's inventory and records without cause or a warrant: as part of a reasonable inquiry during a criminal investigation of someone else; to check recordkeeping compliance, no more than once every 12 months, or anytime for records tied to a firearm traced from a crime; or when needed to track down particular firearms during a genuine criminal investigation. (C) The Attorney General can inspect a licensed collector's inventory and records without cause or warrant, for compliance checks no more than once every 12 months, or to track particular firearms during a genuine criminal investigation. (D) A collector can choose to have the yearly inspection done at the closest designated Attorney General office. This inspection power doesn't let the Attorney General seize records beyond what's material evidence of a violation; if records are seized, copies go back to the licensee within a reasonable time. The Attorney General can share information gained this way — including who's barred from buying or receiving guns and who has bought or received them, plus firearm descriptions — with any federal, state, or local law enforcement agency that asks, to the extent it's in the required records. (2) Each licensed collector must keep a bound record of firearms received, sold, or otherwise disposed of, including the name and address of anyone they sell or give a firearm to, without having to report this to the Attorney General except as specifically required. (3)(A) A licensee must report "multiple sales" — selling two or more pistols or revolvers, in any combination, to the same unlicensed buyer at one time or over 5 business days — on an Attorney General form, sent to the specified office and to state or local police, by the end of the day the sale happens. (B) Except for forms about a buyer barred under section 922(g) or (n), the police who receive that form can't share it or its contents with anyone, and must destroy it (and any record of it) within 20 days. Starting 6 months after this rule takes effect, and every 6 months after that, the police agency must certify to the Attorney General that no improper disclosure happened and all forms were destroyed as required. (4) If a firearms business shuts down and a new licensee takes over, the required records must reflect that and go to the successor. If the business closes for good, records go to the Attorney General within 30 days — unless state or local law requires records to go to some other authority, in which case the Attorney General can arrange delivery there instead. (5)(A) When the Attorney General sends a letter requiring it, each licensee must submit, on the Attorney General's specified form and schedule, all (or a lesser amount the Attorney General specifies) of the required record information, until told to stop. (B) The Attorney General can approve a different reporting method if a licensee shows it's reasonably needed and won't interfere with enforcement — the licensee applies by letter describing the proposed method and why it's needed. (6) A licensee must report the theft or loss of a firearm from their inventory or collection within 48 hours of discovering it, to both the Attorney General and local authorities. (7) A licensee must respond to an Attorney General request for record information — needed to trace one or more firearms in a genuine criminal investigation — immediately, and always within 24 hours, orally or in writing as required. The Attorney General must set up a system so the licensee can confirm that a phone caller asking for this information is really an authorized agency employee. (h) Licenses issued under subsection (c) must be posted and kept available for inspection on the licensed premises. (i) Licensed importers and manufacturers must engrave or cast a serial number on the receiver or frame of every firearm they import or make, as the Attorney General's regulations require. (j) A licensee can temporarily do business at a location other than their licensed address if it's a gun show or similar event sponsored by a firearms-related organization, as long as it's within the state listed on the license. Records from that temporary location must note the location and go into the licensee's permanent records kept at the licensed address. This doesn't let a licensee do business out of a moving or towed vehicle. No extra fee is required for this temporary business. Any Attorney General inspection at a temporary location is limited to inventory or records tied to that location — it doesn't let the Attorney General inspect a licensee's inventory or records anywhere else besides the licensed address. This subsection doesn't reduce any right that existed before the Firearms Owners' Protection Act became law, including a licensee's right to transfer "curios or relics" and do business with another licensee away from their premises, regardless of which state either license specifies. (k) Licensed importers and manufacturers must mark all armor-piercing projectiles and their packaging as the Attorney General requires by regulation. The Attorney General must tell each licensed dealer which projectiles count as "armor piercing ammunition." (l) The Attorney General must tell the relevant state and local police chiefs the names and addresses of everyone in their state who has been issued a firearms license.

The record establishes that this section was added by Public Law 90–351, title IV, § 902, enacted June 19, 1968 (82 Stat. 231). The source credit further shows that the section has been amended at least fifteen times over subsequent decades, including through Public Law 90–618 (1968), Public Law 99–308 and Public Law 99–408 (1986), Public Law 103–159 (1993), Public Law 103–322 (1994), Public Law 104–208 and Public Law 104–294 (1996), Public Law 105–277 (1998), and Public Law 107–296 (2002). This pattern indicates a statute that has been repeatedly revisited by Congress across more than three decades following its original enactment. Public Law 90–351 is generally known as the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, a broad piece of federal crime legislation enacted amid national concern over rising crime rates and civil unrest during the 1960s. Title IV of that Act, sometimes referred to in connection with firearms regulation, is commonly understood to reflect Congress's effort that year to establish a federal framework for licensing and regulating those engaged in the firearms business, building on and consolidating earlier federal firearms controls. Beyond this general historical backdrop, the specific record does not establish the particular legislative motivations behind each subsequent amendment listed in the source credit, such as the 1986 Firearms Owners' Protection Act changes or the 1994 and 1996 revisions. Determining the precise purpose of any individual amendment would require consulting the legislative history of that specific enactment, which is not supplied here. This note does not offer legal advice.