ATF Gains Power to Blacklist Firearm Dealers, Ties Law Enforcement Grants to Compliance

The Responsible Retirement of Law Enforcement Firearms Act of 2025 (RRLEF Act) is changing the rules of the game for state and local law enforcement agencies that rely on federal cash. Specifically, it targets the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, a major source of funding for local police departments.

The New Rule for Federal Funding

If a state or local agency wants to get their hands on Byrne Grant money, they now have to sign a pledge: they cannot transfer firearms to, or buy firearms from, any licensed dealer who lands on a new restricted list maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Think of it as a mandatory vendor blacklist for anyone taking this federal money. This means if your local police department takes Byrne funds for anything—say, new patrol cars or training—they are now restricted in who they can do business with when it comes to guns.

How Dealers Get Blacklisted

This isn’t about just any dealer. The bill defines a “covered licensed dealer” as one who, in at least two of the previous three years, had 25 or more firearms traced by the ATF that were recovered in a crime within three years of the initial retail sale. This is what policy wonks call a “short time-to-crime” metric. The idea is to identify dealers whose guns are quickly flowing into criminal hands. For a high-volume dealer, hitting that 25-gun threshold across two years might be easier than you think, even if they followed all the rules. It means legitimate businesses could be cut off from sales to federally funded agencies, which could be a significant hit to their bottom line.

Bringing Gun Tracing Data Out of the Shadows

One of the biggest changes in the RRLEF Act is a major push for transparency regarding gun tracing data. For decades, the ATF has been restricted by Congress from publicly sharing most of its tracing data, often tucked away in budget riders. This bill explicitly repeals those old restrictions, dating back to 2005.

What does this mean in practice? First, the ATF must now publicly post the list of all those blacklisted “covered licensed dealers” on their website. Second, the Attorney General must notify state and local law enforcement agencies if a firearm they sold or transferred was later traced to a crime. This is a game-changer for transparency, giving the public and law enforcement a clearer picture of where crime guns originate. While this transparency is a clear benefit, there’s a flip side: how this data is managed and presented matters. If it’s not handled carefully, it could inadvertently reveal sensitive investigative details or unfairly target dealers who are simply high-volume sellers in high-crime areas.

The Real-World Friction

For the average person, this bill might seem like just bureaucratic paperwork, but it creates real friction points. If you’re a police chief in a mid-sized town receiving Byrne Grant funds, you now have an extra layer of administrative burden. Before you buy new service weapons, you have to cross-reference your chosen vendor against the ATF’s public list. If your preferred dealer is on that list, you have to find a new supplier, which could mean higher costs or delays. For the blacklisted dealers, even if they haven't broken the law, being publicly identified by the federal government as a source of crime guns is a massive reputational blow, potentially impacting their ability to operate even outside of government contracts. The bill aims to dry up the supply chain for crime guns, but it does so by creating new compliance hurdles and public exposure for businesses.