Marc Berman

Existing law requires the Department of Justice to keep a centralized list of all persons who are licensed firearms dealers and satisfy certain requirements, including having a valid federal firearms license and a regulatory or business license required by local government. Existing law requires the department to remove a person from the list if the person's federal license has expired or been revoked. Existing law, beginning on January 1, 2024, requires the department to conduct inspections of firearms dealers at least every 3 years, except as provided, to ensure compliance with specified requirements. As part of the department's inspections of firearms dealers, existing law requires the department to audit a dealer's records that includes a sampling of at least 25% but no more than 50% of each record type. Existing law requires the department to assess annual fees not to exceed specified amounts to cover the reasonable costs of inspecting and maintaining this list and other similar centralized lists.

This bill would require the department to remove from the list a person who fails to comply with the requirements to be on the list and authorize the department to remove a person from the list who fails to remedy specified violations discovered as a result of the above-described inspections. The bill would subject a person removed from the list for failure to remedy specified violations to a fine and make that person ineligible to be placed on the list for a period of 2 years. The bill would require the department to conduct a yearly inspection of the 10 firearm dealer locations with the highest percentage of firearms that were recovered by law enforcement and found to be illegally possessed, used in a crime, or suspected to have been used in a crime, as specified, pursuant to a certain yearly report. The bill would, for the fees charged for inspecting and maintaining the above-described lists, instead require the department to assess a reasonable annual fee. The bill would prohibit a fee adjustment from exceeding 15% over the previous year and exceeding the amount necessary to cover the costs described above.