The ATF revoked 56 gun dealer licenses in 2025—down from 183 in 2024—as the agency rolled back parts of the Biden-era approach and stopped publicly listing revoked dealers. In a hearing, ATF director Robert Cekada defended ending the practice after gun industr
On a Friday in May 2026. the fight over who gets pulled into ATF enforcement—and how visible that process should be—played out in public. For gun dealers. the stakes are concrete: a license revocation can end a business. disrupt livelihoods. and brand a storefront with records that don’t simply disappear.
Behind that tension sits a shift the ATF has already set in motion. In 2025, the agency revoked 56 gun dealer licenses, a steep drop from 183 in 2024. The change signals a different approach under President Donald Trump. according to a recent discussion on The Excerpt podcast dated Friday. May 15. 2026.
The agency also stopped publicly listing revoked dealers, framing the move as a privacy protection for both gun owners and the gun industry—an issue that came up again in a hearing led by new ATF director Robert Cekada.
The numbers are the first signal. “We need to revamp some of these policies. ” President Donald Trump said shortly after taking office. setting the stage for an updated operating manual inside the ATF. The result shows up in the agency’s enforcement outcomes: fewer license revocations and. in practice. more chances for gun sellers to remain operating.
The drop is not just a one-year blip. The podcast discussion placed 2025’s decline back in line with Trump-era levels seen in 2016 and 2017. when “just dozens of shops” were revoked rather than the “well over a hundred” during the Biden administration. During those earlier years, the ATF pursued enhanced enforcement and moved more quickly to revoke licenses.
Much of the difference traces back to what the Biden administration called a “zero tolerance” policy and how it treated violations. The enforcement focus under that approach centered on what officials described as serious. “willful” infractions—cases where gun shops were said to understand they were breaking the law and did it anyway.
The violations described during the discussion included selling a gun without performing the background check correctly and not maintaining records important for the ATF to trace firearms and help law enforcement solve crimes. Supporters characterized the policy as aimed at matters that can be major crime-fighting tools. while opponents said it often zeroed in on paperwork and clerical. “non-material” issues.
Robert Cekada, the new ATF director, announced 34 proposed rules. Among them is a rollback of the Biden administration’s policy that tightened the line between hobbyists and dealers. Under that rule. the question wasn’t just whether someone sold guns—it was whether they were doing it enough that they were “engaged in the business.” The podcast discussion described the rollback as a return toward a different policy that gives hobbyists “a little bit more leeway.”.
Advocacy groups and parts of the gun violence prevention community reacted sharply to the proposed changes. In the discussion. the rollback of the “engaged in the business” standard was described as something advocates opposed because it changes how the ATF draws the boundary for routine gun selling.
The ATF’s rationale. as described in the episode. hinges on enforcement effectiveness and on the danger of untraced gun sales. The concern was that there are “freewheeling untraced gun sellers out there.” Once a seller becomes a federal licensed dealer. the ATF expects more scrutiny. compliance paperwork. and the performance of background checks—requirements that private sellers do not have to follow.
At the heart of the argument for change was a claim about registration and impact: the director made the point that the ATF measured the impact of new registrations and saw it as minimal, leading to the view that the rule change was not producing the results it should.
But the most immediate flashpoint came from how the ATF handled transparency.
Under the prior administration, the ATF publicly listed gun shops that had their licenses revoked and included regulatory history and the paperwork leading to the revocation. The hearing discussed that the revocations often followed years of ATF inspections and audits showing serious violations.
The podcast discussion also pointed to an “obscure program” known as DL2—the “Demand Letter 2 program.” It annually targets dealers that sold more than 25 guns that were recovered at crime scenes within a short time period. based on the chain of custody from when the seller sold the guns to when they surfaced in crimes.
That is where the tension between oversight and privacy hardened into public conflict. The discussion described how gun violence prevention groups and the media obtained DL2 lists and used them to “shine a light on” where crime guns were being sold and where straw purchasers were targeting gun shops.
For many in the gun industry, the lists crossed a line.
The director addressed the criticism directly in the hearing. saying: “We should be holding people accountable and we should be truthful with what that data says. Those DL2 lists were not designed by me or anyone else to use as a name and shame campaign. but that’s exactly what they were used as and that’s not what the intention was.”.
The episode framed the argument as not just about data, but about how the data is treated once it enters public view. Gun industry leaders, as discussed, labeled the practice a “name and shame campaign,” and Cekada argued that the information was being used in a way that distorted intentions.
There was also a personal edge to the debate. The discussion included Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican who is also a gun shop owner. His shop appeared on the list. and the podcast discussion said his shop sold more than 25 guns that turned up at crime scenes. Clyde described the listing as unfairly targeting him.
For the 56 dealers whose licenses were revoked in 2025, consequences didn’t land the same way across every case.
One example discussed was “Grips by Larry,” an Arizona shop whose license was revoked. The podcast discussion said the shop had been in the news in 2025 because the owners were indicted in a gun trafficking case. Then. under the new administration and its focus on Mexican cartels. “superseding indictment was handed down just in March.” The episode described the new charges as involving aiding terrorism. noting that the cartels have been designated as foreign terrorists. It described the revocation as connected to the broader scrutiny facing the shop’s owners.
Other dealers, the discussion said, reopened under new ownership or branding.
John Duncan and his wife run a gun shop in Leesburg, Ohio, according to the episode. The discussion said Duncan had noticed on the shop’s Facebook page that the business announced it was closing “last August. ” without explaining why. The shop later reopened under a new name, and the podcast discussion said it appeared on the revoked-dealers list. Duncan said. according to the discussion. they had “an audit. ” and he told the reporter: “We made some mistakes and it was embarrassing.”.
He also disputed how the administration treated him. feeling targeted and embarrassed. and believing the ATF was “making a point.” With the change in the administration. the discussion said he was able to reopen. rename the shop. and return to selling guns—presented as part of a new regime that prompts reapplication for older licenses or requests to clean up compliance issues under a different banner.
The episode offered a warning that the drop in revocations may not translate into permanent safety for dealers. Enforcement records, the discussion emphasized, don’t reset. “Your record is being scrutinized on a time delay. ” the episode said. pointing to the idea that if an inspection happens “two years” later. the ATF could still look back at how a shop handled paperwork at the earlier point in time.
It also highlighted that many of the changes are still in the proposed stage: the 34 proposed rules described in the discussion are “still not finalized.” So even as enforcement outcomes in 2025 moved toward fewer revocations. compliance obligations remain active and the future record can still matter.
At the center of the hearing, and the deeper tension behind the policy shifts, is a clash over who should get to see what. The episode described the pull between privacy and gun rights—paired with the push from media and advocacy groups for more information.
Gun owners are described as notoriously private, and gun shops often do not want names shared “improperly.” Yet the oversight system, as represented in the debate, depends on public accountability and information that can connect enforcement activity to patterns seen in crime.
When Cekada defended ending the lists, the message landed differently depending on what side someone stood on: for the ATF, privacy and proper intent; for critics, transparency and a way to show where enforcement actions are coming from.
In the end, the hearing underscored a simple reality: even with a sharp drop in revocations—from 183 in 2024 to 56 in 2025—what changes most visibly may be the line between enforcement and visibility, not the underlying scrutiny that follows gun dealers over time.
The episode aired on Friday, May 15, 2026, with Dana Taylor and investigative reporter Nick Penzenstadler discussing the shift. It also credited senior producer Kaely Monahan for production assistance and executive producer Laura Beatty.
ATF gun dealer licenses revoked licenses Robert Cekada DL2 Demand Letter 2 program gun regulation rollback Trump era enforcement background checks zero tolerance policy privacy debate