Aaron Horwath of Kenai, Alaska, was acquitted by a jury of his peers on September 27 on a federal charge of dealing in firearms without a license. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) charged the owner of Gator Guns Inc. last summer on the allegations that he was selling guns from his store despite the agency having revoked his Federal Firearms License (FFL) years earlier. 

The ATF revoked Horwath’s FFL in 2020 due to what the agency claims were “willful violations of federal firearms laws and regulations,” accusing him of failing to record hundreds of firearms sales transactions between 1982 and 2018. Aaron Horwath’s attorney, Steve Wells, says the errors were not willful violations but clerical ones that went unnoticed until the ATF switched to electronic records in recent years. Before that, the agency had never inspected the gun store owner’s records for the nearly four decades he was in business.

“The government describes them as missing guns, but in many ways, they’re not so much missing guns as missing paperwork,” Wells said.

ATF claims contact on two separate occasions in 2021 by individuals informing them Horwath was still selling guns from his Kenai storefront. The agency itself made three separate undercover firearms purchases from the business before filing charges.

The ATF requires former federal firearms licensees to dispose of their remaining inventory without engaging in the business of dealing guns, suggesting sale or consignment to another license holder. However, a dealer may transfer inventory items from the FFL to their personal collection at any time, which is exactly what Horwath did. 

Wells argued that federal prosecutors could not prove that his client had acquired any new inventory since his license was revoked, and had instead legally transferred his remaining inventory to himself, selling the firearms in a personal capacity. A person is not required to have a federal firearms license to conduct private gun sales, making Horwath well within his rights. 

“As a private citizen, you can sell. And there’s no indication that he was buying and then turning around and selling after he lost his license,” Wells added.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Bradley and C. Cody Tirpak said in their trial brief that they must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant acted in a capacity beyond that of a hobbyist or collector. They were also required to demonstrate that Horwath dedicated the time and energy to selling guns as a business with the intent of profiting through repeated purchases and sales.

Wells made his argument successfully in a trial that began at about 4 PM on Thursday with jurors returning a “not guilty” verdict around 9 AM the next morning.

Horwath’s acquittal means the ATF must return all of the guns they seized while executing search warrants, a transaction I would not mind being a fly on the wall to witness. Much of the damage, however, has been done, first by shutting down his business, then seizing his personal items and blocking his legal right to liquidate them, then by dragging him into a trial, a strategy seen used often by the government to convey that even in losing, they will destroy you. I would find it appropriate to institute a measure of compensatory damages discouraging such bullying tactics, or perhaps removing qualified immunity from those involved so they could be held personally liable upon acquittal. In any event, Horwath will not get back the firearms that the ATF purchased as part of its undercover operations. They bought those fair and square.