Aside from the random gun bans, policy also made it way more expensive to sell parts. When you have to check PALs for misc parts, it increases the cost to do business.
Before we only needed to verify the license for firearms, which took a couple of minutes. Just type in the PAL info and it says valid / invalid and we would verify the name and address on file matched the order.
Now we need to do this for certain components, and for firearms also generate a "reference number" on the CFP site, record it along with the shipping info and firearm info, and keep that log for 20 years.
I'm curious, is there specific criteria for the format of the logs? This information is stored only by the retailer as I understand.
Say if a court were to subpoena the logs from retailers, are electronic ledgers in a certain format mandated by the government or can retailers use paper versions for example?
It's also a compounding issue in that if you have a manufacturer -> distributor -> dealer -> customer model of doing business, at each step the process for transferring is repeated.
As well, at the retail level it's really common for the pal verification to fail and needs more labor time to sort out. Usually someone just didn't enter their info properly, but also it's common for the site to just say you need to call in.
It's a needless burden when the old system was fine.
and the distributor isn't selling one 1 to a store
Actually that's really common, especially for the smaller stores.
I never said this is what put the store out of business. It's going to be a combination of things, but rising costs are an issue for many. Every little bit matters.
The gun bans removing desirable products, the shit economy reducing spending money, rising costs on goods, tariffs, excess bureaucracy, payment processors refusing to do business with gun stores, rising insurance premiums.... It's a death by a thousand cuts for a lot of the gun shops that have gone out of business in the past couple years.
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u/thehuntinggearguy 3gun, Mapleseed, YouTuber, SlamFire Radio, Revolver-hater Apr 21 '26
Aside from the random gun bans, policy also made it way more expensive to sell parts. When you have to check PALs for misc parts, it increases the cost to do business.