FFLGuard Announces “Strategic Alliance” with the ATF Association
OutdoorHub 05.22.12
FFLGuard, the firearms industry’s premier legal compliance services program, recently formed a strategic alliance with the ATF Association (ATFA), which is comprised of former and current members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Both FFLGuard and the ATFA share common goals with respect to firearms: ensuring licensee compliance with firearms laws through continued legal training and support, promoting the firearms industry’s interest in public safety without restrictions that hamper sales, and improving the sometimes tenuous working relationship between Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) and ATF.
FFLGuard is a cooperative legal services program offered to FFLs by The Chiafullo Group, LLP, a law firm that provides cost-effective and specialized legal counsel to over 300 independent gun retailers across the nation in anticipation of or in response to – among other legal concerns – a ATF compliance inspection. The FFLGuard program, launched in 2008, continues to expand after increased demand and success. FFLGuard’s legal services include access to firearms lawyers, subject matter experts and professionals who deliver legal advice, training, and guidance designed to educate FFLs to be compliant with the law before ATF performs an inspection. The subject matter experts and professionals employed by FFLGuard are retired ATF personnel, all of whom are ATFA members with no less than 25 years of service with ATF, and who make sure that FFLGuard clients receive counsel on a standard of best practices and requirements – FFLGuard’s Law Plus Guidelines – to exceed what is required by law.
The ATFA is an organization that seeks to share their collective law enforcement experience and perspective with the firearms industry and the licensed public. Their goal is to encourage licensee compliance, in the hopes that ATF may focus its resources more efficiently on areas of need, while simultaneously reducing the negative implications associated with a license revocation.
Chris Chiafullo, National Coordinating Counsel of FFLGuard, states: “Our goal is to leverage the ATFA’s knowledge base to ensure our clients receive the best advice possible. By harnessing this advice and sharing it with our client base, it should decrease actions taken by ATF against FFLGuard clients, thereby resolving matters to the benefit of all parties. Our clients will benefit immensely from this relationship, as it costs everyone a [heck] of a lot less to fix problems in advance rather than fight about them after the fact.”
The President of the ATFA, Charles Peterson, followed these remarks by noting that “the ATFA looks forward to this alliance with the firearms industry through FFLGuard. The ATFA was formed not only as a benevolent association, but as a resource for the public and the firearms industry to access the knowledge of our diverse and highly experienced members… and we hope more firearms businesses and associations will seek this type of alliance.”
Both FFLGuard and the ATFA are interfacing with ATF to build on the mutually beneficial relationship through what ATFA has dubbed its “3T Initiative.” Through “teamwork, tactics and technology,” ATFA and FFLGuard are aligned in interest to ensure that the firearms industry and ATF share the most current technology, utilize teamwork to solve problems, and employ real-world tactics to promote compliance within the firearms industry. These heightened and comprehensive communications through a public-private partnership have absolutely no downside and benefit all parties involved.
Michael Bouchard, an ATFA Past President, former Assistant Director of ATF, and current ATF-ATFA Liaison for FFLGuard, has identified an opportunity for ATFA to help ATF to better relate to and understand FFLs. “The most interesting element of this relationship is the possibilities that are explored without political motive,” states Bouchard. “We hope that we can help the current administration at ATF gain insight into the firearms industry’s needs without the political agenda that usually accompanies it. The industry and ATF can benefit from this relationship.”
“Neither guns, nor FFLs, nor their regulations and regulators, are going anywhere anytime soon, so an open line of communication is vital to success of the firearms industry,” Chiafullo offered. “If we can help ATF understand the concerns of FFLs by using ATFA as a conduit, then we are only increasing the value of our services, and the legal ‘safety net’ that we provide, to FFLGuard clients across the nation.”
For more information on the FFLGuard program, visit www.fflguard.com or call 1-888-FFL-GRD1 (1-888-335-4731), follow them on Twitter @FFLGuard, or “like” them at www.facebook.com/fflguard. Further information on the ATFA can be found at www.atfassociation.org.
