Quote Originally Posted by High Altitude View Post
I am thinking about applying for an FFL and have a couple questions. Maybe someone here will be able to help.

I live in unincorporated jefferson county.

I want to start selling at gunshows etc... and transition to a store front.

I realize that not having a store front and using your home address as the business address could cause problems.

Does anyone have any experience with this?
Unincorporated means you can generally do what you want with your property, including running a gun business on it. Won't hurt to check with jeffco zoning, though.

You can primarily sell at gunshows if you want, but *must* have some public business hours at your premises address, whether you like it, or advertise those hours, or not. My public business hours are 3-5pm on saturdays, with other hours by appt only. In the old days, you could actually get away with "appt only", and some FFLs are grandfathered in for those hours, but new applicants have to provide some legit business hours.

Not having a storefront doesn't really cause any problems. It means your residence, or whatever is your 'premises address' is subject to a possible annual search by the ATF during your compliance inspection. Some solve this by providing an outbuilding on their land, complete with a seperate address (221 1/2 baker street, or box 14-A, county rd #43, for instance), such that only the outbuilding is the 'premises address', and subject to annual compliance inspections.

My business name, for instance, is "Richard Stone". If someone balks at sending firearms to me that way, even though they have an ffl copy in hand, I tell 'em to put

Richard Stone, Custom Guns
or
Richard Stone
Custom Guns

and that seems to shut 'em up. ATF doesn't mind as long as it's clearly the name of the licensed business, and the physical address is as described for the 'premises address' on the FFL.

Good luck with your endeavors.