Black Metal Firearms tangled with an ATF inspector (IOI) late last year who was caught illegally copying gun records with her personal cell phone. Four thousand gun records, to be exact. Was she attempting to create a gun registry? She also recommended Black Metal Firearms lose their FFL. Attempts to get the ATF to respond have been met with “no comment.”
Dave Nagel is one of the co-owners of Black Metal Firearms in Mesa, Arizona. The ATF sent an Industry Operations Investigator named Pamela Scott to review the records of the firearms dealer. She arrived in December and concluded her audit in February. The first tangle came about when she wanted to know why Nagel’s records were hard copy and not computerized. He remarked that he wouldn’t trust her with computerized records.
Then she remarked that Black Metal Firearms had a lot of “gun nuts” as customers. When he told her they prefer the term “gun enthusiasts,” she told him she prefers “gun nuts.” As she went through her audit, she found nothing except a few minor clerical errors. No missing guns, no suspicious activity, no significant problems.
“She said she was going to put us in for revocation, and that it may change as it goes up the chain, but that was her recommendation. We didn’t sell guns to the drug cartels, like the ATF did. Everything we deal in is something that can readily be sold to a customer. There’s nothing here outlandish. We sell normal stuff to the common man, and she treated us like drug dealers.”
Dave Nagel noticed that she had two cell phones, one for personal use and one for the ATF. He took a video of her scanning his Acquisition and Disposition books with her personal phone. He reportedly took several videos. The A&D books contain records of every firearm transaction, including the buyers’ personal information.
“Once she started recording the information from our books, I confronted her. I was concerned she was creating a database. She claimed that copying our records with her personal cell phone was ‘part of the purview of her investigation.’”
Black Metal Firearms has retained an attorney. Their owners say they only revealed this incident publicly in July because they wanted people to know what was happening.
We have written previously about the Biden administration’s focus on “rogue gun dealers” who aren’t “rogue.” They just made minor clerical errors that have nothing to do with any nefarious business dealings. The revocations of FFLs are up 500% under this administration. And they apparently will do anything, including break the law, to accomplish their task. Also, remember that their Director, Steve Dettelbach (Obama’s classmate), is an anti-gunner and an advocate of banning firearms. The ATF is out of control. They fired an acting Director who was friendly to gun dealers. Now the agency is weaponized to its fullest.