How Many Guns Can I Sell Before I Need a License

How Many Guns Can I Sell Before I Need a License

The answer is one. One gun, if you bought it intending to resell for profit, makes you an unlicensed dealer under federal law. The number doesn’t matter. The intent matters. And that’s what nobody tells you when you’re searching online for a safe number of guns you can flip without getting in trouble. There is no safe number. There is only intent.

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. We created this page because people keep asking the wrong question. They want to know how many guns they can sell before ATF cares. Is it 5? Is it 10? Is there a threshold where you’re safe? The brutal truth is that the question itself reveals the problem. If you’re searching for a number that lets you sell guns without a license, you’re already thinking like someone who needs a license. ATF knows this. And they’re watching the people who think they’ve found a loophole.

Here’s what federal law actually says. A person who devotes “time, attention, and labor” to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business to “predominantly earn a profit” through repetitive purchase and resale needs a Federal Firearms License. Notice what’s missing from that definition. A number. Any number. The law doesn’t say “more than 10 guns per year.” It doesn’t say “more than 5 sales per month.” It says nothing about quantities because quantities don’t determine whether you’re a dealer. Intent determines whether you’re a dealer.

The Question Everyone Gets Wrong

Everyone wants a magic number. “How many guns can I sell before I need a license?” Heres the uncomfortable truth that makes lawyers money and destroys peoples lives. You can sell 50 guns from your personal collection legally. Or you can sell ONE gun illegally. The difference isnt the quantity – its wheather you bought it planning to keep it versus planning to flip it.

The irony that should make you pause is this. The more carefully you structure your sales to stay under an imaginary threshold, the more ATF sees evidence of “time, attention, and labor” devoted to dealing. Thats the exact definition of someone who needs a license. Your caution proves your guilt. Your awareness of the line proves you know your crossing it.

Courts have convicted people for unlicensed dealing even when few or no firearms were actualy sold. The crime is being “engaged in the business” – not successfully completing sales. One defendant offered 75 guns for sale at a single gun show. He was charged with unlicensed dealing. The number of guns he actualy sold? Doesnt matter. The offer to sell was enough. His presence at the show, with inventory, demonstrated intent to deal.

Heres what this means for you. If your searching for “how many guns can I sell before I need a license,” your asking the wrong question. The right question is: “Did I buy this gun intending to sell it for profit?” If yes, you need a license to sell it – even if its your first sale. If no, you can sell it as part of your personal collection. Same gun. Same sale. Different crime based on a thought you had months ago when you made the purchase.

The “gun show loophole” narrative makes people think private sales are completly unregulated. There not. Private sales are legal. Private DEALING is not. The difference between a sale and dealing destroys people who dont understand were the line is. You can sell a gun from your collection to your neighbor. You cant run a business selling guns to your neighbors friends without a license. The activity looks similar from the outside. The legal consequences are completly different.

What “Engaged in the Business” Actually Means

The question isnt “how many can I sell?” – the question is “why did I buy it?” If you bought it to sell it, you need a license. If you bought it for yourself and later decided to sell, you dont. Thats the inversion that catches everyone off guard.

The 2024 ATF final rule made this even more dangerous. Under the new interpretation, the government dosent need to prove you actualy made profit. They only need to prove you intended to make profit. You can lose money on every single gun you sell and still be guilty of unlicensed dealing if your intent was to make money. The outcome is irrelevant. The intent is the crime.

Todd Spodek explains this to clients who cant understand why there facing charges. “I barely made anything” isnt a defense. “I sometimes lost money” isnt a defense. The only defense is “I bought these guns for my personal collection, used them, and later decided to sell some.” Thats the personal collection exception. Everything else is dealing.

Heres how ATF proves intent without reading your mind. They look at circumstantial evidence. How long did you own the gun before selling? Did you ever shoot it? Did you buy multiple guns of the same type? Did you sell for more then you paid? Did you advertise guns for sale? Did you sell repeatedly over time? Each of these facts is a data point. Stack enough data points together and intent becomes obvious – even if you never explicitly stated “I bought this to flip it.”

The uncomfortable truth is that intent at time of purchase is what matters legally, but intent is proven by what happened AFTER. Bought and sold quickly? Evidence of intent. Never fired the gun? Evidence of intent. Sold for profit? Evidence of intent. Your actions after the purchase create the proof of what you were thinking during the purchase.

The 2022 Law That Changed Everything

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed in June 2022. One word changed in the legal standard. That single word change expanded federal licensing requirements to an estimated 23,006 additional people who are now technically operating as unlicensed dealers.

The old standard was “principal objective of livelihood and profit.” That meant you had to be basicly running a gun store as your career. Flipping guns on the side didnt qualify if you had another job. The old standard protected hobbyists who made some extra money.

The new standard is “predominantly earn a profit.” Livelihood is gone. Now if profit is your predominant motivation – even if its side income, even if its pocket money, even if its a hobby that happens to make you money – you need a license. The threshold dropped dramatically.

Heres the hidden connection that makes this change devastating. ATF dosent just apply this to new sales going forward. Your past pattern of sales – the guns you sold in 2020, 2021, 2022 – now gets evaluated under the new standard. What was legal two years ago might now be used as evidence that you were “engaged in the business” all along. The law changed. Your criminal exposure expanded retroactivly.

And the government estimates that 23,006 people are now operating illegally who werent before. Most of them have no idea. They think there selling from there personal collection. There actualy unlicensed dealers under the new definition. If your reading this and youve sold guns regularly over the years, you might be one of them.

ATF identified unlicensed dealers as the most frequently used gun trafficking channel between 2017 and 2021. More then 68,000 illegally trafficked firearms came from unlicensed dealers during that period – more then half of all trafficked guns in the study. Thats why the government expanded the definition. Thats why enforcement is increasing. And thats why what you thought was casual selling might now be federal dealing.

How ATF Builds Unlicensed Dealer Cases

Every gun has a serial number. Every sale creates a connection. When a gun shows up at a crime scene, ATF traces it back through its chain of ownership. And heres the system revelation that should terrify you. If three traced guns lead back to the same seller, ATF has probable cause for an unlicensed dealing investigation.

The eTrace system connects your name to every crime gun you ever sold. A detective in Chicago recovers a gun at a homicide. They run the trace. Your name appears as a previous owner. That information goes into a database. Six months later, same thing happens in Detroit. Your name appears again. Now theres a pattern. A year after that, same thing in Atlanta. ATF now has three data points. An investigation opens. And you have no idea your under federal scrutiny.

Heres how they build the case from there. ATF subpoenas online sales platforms. They pull gun show records. They get your social media posts – including the ones you deleted. Your Facebook Marketplace listings for guns? Still recoverable. Your Instagram story showing guns for sale? Archived. Your text messages arranging sales? Subpoenaed from your carrier. Every gun you sold creates a paper trail you never considered.

The investigation runs for months before anyone contacts you. By the time ATF shows up at your door, they already know how many guns youve sold, who you sold them to, and how much money you made. There not asking questions to learn. There asking questions to see if you’ll lie. And lying to federal agents is a seperate crime that makes everything worse.

The “Personal Collection” Defense That Sometimes Works

Federal law explicitly allows selling firearms from your personal collection without a license. The term specificaly excludes “a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of the person’s personal collection.”

Being a collector who sells saves you. Being a buyer who resells destroys you. The distinction exists entirely in your intent at the time of acquisition.

But heres the uncomfortable truth about that defense. The “personal collection” exception requires you to prove the collection was genuine. If you cant document when you acquired the gun, how long you owned it, why your selling it – your making the governments case for them. “Its from my personal collection” only works if you can prove it actualy was.

What does a genuine personal collection look like? Guns acquired over time, not in bulk. Guns you actualy used – took to the range, hunted with, kept for home defense. Guns you owned for extended periods before deciding to sell. A pattern consistent with collecting, not inventory management.

What does inventory look like? Multiple guns of the same model. Quick turnovers – bought in March, sold in April. Guns still in original packaging, never fired. Advertising guns for sale before you even bought them. Thats not a collection. Thats stock. And stock requires a license.

Heres another trap that catches people. You buy a gun genuinly intending to keep it. Then a month later, you need money. You sell it. Thats legal – you changed your mind about a gun in your collection. But do that five times in a year and ATF sees a pattern. Did you really change your mind five times? Or were you buying guns knowing you could sell them if you needed cash? That anticipated ability to resell – even as a backup plan – starts looking like intent to deal. The line between “legitimate collection sales” and “using guns as inventory you can liquidate” gets very thin when you sell repeatedly.

Case Studies of Prosecuted Unlicensed Dealers

David Joseph Mull of Indiana sold more then 1,300 firearms without a license. Many were bound for Mexico. ATF traced guns from his sales to crime scenes across multiple countries. Mull got 4 years in federal prison followed by two years of supervised release. 1,300 guns. 4 years. That gives you a sense of how seriously federal courts take unlicensed dealing when it reaches that scale.

Armani Morris of Texas was 22 years old when he sold more then 50 guns without a license. ATF sent an undercover agent to buy directly from him. Morris was warned that his conduct was unlawful. He continued anyway. Convicted. Twenty-two years old, probly thought he was just making money on the side, facing federal felony charges that will follow him for life.

Giovanni Tilotta ran Honey Badger Firearms in San Diego – a licensed dealer who was convicted for assisting unlicensed dealers. This was the first federal criminal conviction of a civilian retail gun store owner in the Southern District of California in at least 15 years. Even licensed dealers who help unlicensed dealers face federal prosecution.

Jonathan Ludlow was an FFL holder sentenced to 4 years for selling to unlicensed dealers for resale. At his sentencing, prosecutors revealed that traces linked his guns to multiple homicides across Texas. Other guns were recovered in foreign countries. The chain of trafficking started with licensed sales and ended with murders. Thats why ATF prosecutes these cases aggressivly.

The Federal Penalties You’re Facing

A person who willfully engages in the business of dealing in firearms without a license faces up to 5 years in federal prison and fines up to $250,000. Thats per count. If your charged with multiple unlicensed sales, penalties stack. Civil asset forfeiture takes any guns and proceeds. And a conviction means lifetime prohibition from possessing firearms.

The consequence cascade works like this. Sell a few guns. ATF traces one to a crime scene. Your name appears in eTrace. Investigation opens. They pull your entire sales history. A pattern emerges. Federal charges. 5 years exposure per count. Conviction. Lifetime firearms prohibition. Your right to own guns – the thing you were trying to make money from – gets taken away permanantly becuase of how you were selling.

Heres what makes this worse. Federal conviction rate exceeds 90%. ATF dosent bring cases they think they’ll lose. If theyve charged you with unlicensed dealing, they have the evidence. The traces. The transaction records. The pattern analysis. By the time you learn your under investigation, the case is largely built. Your defense options have narrowed considerably.

And unlike state charges, federal prison means federal prison. No parole in the federal system. You serve 85% of your sentence minimum. A 5-year federal sentence means over 4 years actualy incarcerated. Thats four years in a federal facility, away from your family, losing your job, losing your freedom – all becuase you thought selling guns on the side didnt need paperwork. The punishment is real. The consequences are permanant.

Contact a Federal Firearms Defense Attorney

Maybe ATF just contacted you. Maybe you’ve been selling guns and your starting to wonder if you crossed a line. Maybe you just found out that guns you sold ended up at crime scenes and your realizing what that means. Whatever brought you here, understand this: if your selling firearms with any regularity and any intent to profit, you might already be operating as an unlicensed dealer.

Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196 before you talk to anyone. Federal unlicensed dealing charges carry up to 5 years per count. Fines reach $250,000. And everything you say to ATF agents – even trying to explain yourself – can become evidence against you. “I didnt know I needed a license” is not a defense. The law requires you to know.

Todd Spodek has defended clients facing federal firearms charges involving unlicensed dealing allegations. We understand how these cases develop. We know how to challenge the pattern evidence ATF relies on. We know how to present legitimate personal collection defenses when the facts support them. And we know how to protect you during ATF interviews so you dont create additional problems.

Call us at 212-300-5196. The consultation is free. The mistake of talking to federal agents without counsel could determine wheather you spend the next several years in federal prison.

Your not looking for a number anymore. Your looking for a lawyer. Call Spodek Law Group now. 212-300-5196.