Or show them the face book pages, printed out screenshots.

+1

Something about living in a glass house while being the first to chuck rocks… would be fun to report some people to the IRS and see if you can collect the finder’s fee on them cheating uncle sam. Might even see a divorce and new neighbors.

And because I have to find something serious to comment on...

This calls for Pelican vigilante justice!

Cacti beware :D

Well.... you did decide to live there.... rock out on yer patio Rick :)

Sadly, there are wankers everywhere.
Yep, 100%.

And a ray of hope emerges. I was just copied on an email to the City from a couple who had written to oppose my application. This was their message:

Dear Zoning Board,
After communicating with the applicant we have decided to withdraw our opposition letter.
Thank you,

Nice! It seems that there are reasonable, rational people in the world.

It's getting interesting now. Tues. night I came home from work and a neighbor was in his driveway. He has a BMW 328i and I had a 320i I sold a few years ago. I had a new Mahle air filter for it I could no longer use, so I walked over to give it to him and chat. He was totally cool, said he'd use me for transfers if I get my FFL and wants to go shoot with me sometime. 10 minutes ago I got a scathing email forwarded by the City from this man's wife! And she sent it last week, but it's just now getting to me and two days after I had a very pleasant chat with her husband in the driveway. I have to think he mentioned our conversation to her. But who knows what goes on there?

Be glad that you're not married to her!

The real Karen instigator is their nextdoor neighbor. She has door knocked us a few times, trying ti round up votes for or against some HOA thing. I'm sure she organized this whole thing and a lot of it done via ChatGPT, as I just can't see everyone writing such long protest letters, cutting and pasting language from the HOA CCRs that clearly lay out why this activity is perfectly ok with the permit, which some of these people need and don't have. I really wonder how this hearing will go, if they just ask me some questions, read all the protests, ask me to rebut them, or what.

I hate HOAs and the type of people that gravitate to participating in them. Small people in search of power and importance.

Just got back from my hearing and the use permit was denied. Five neighbors showed up and two of them were represented by a lawyer. Not joking. This guy was out of central casting, just a dramatic bag o’doosh. If I had been a judge, it would have been hard to seriously consider any argument he made. The hearing officer did interrupt him a few times to remind him that what he was claiming I was doing was something I had already addressed and explained how I was not doing it.

Anyway, the reason given for the denial was negative impact on property values. Mind you the three other neighborhood FFLs and non-permitted businesses have been left alone and, so they obviously haven’t impacted property values. I need to find out if I appeal, whether I only have to address that one reason with no new issues allowed to be brought up. Or is it starting the process all over again? And an appeal is another $490 fee. Maybe I can just reapply for my FFL and hope my app gets assigned to a different examiner who doesn’t require me to get the use permit.

Wow! That's insane.

The legal term to look for is whether the review in your jurisdiction is "de novo" or not. If de novo, its as if the hearing never happened, if not, its limited to the a review of the rationale for the ruling.

A ffl isn’t going to lower property values. Might increase them…

Ok, I read over the appeal documents they gave me and it looks like, while the process is a little different and more streamlined, any subject can be brought up, discussed and debated before a board. So, while my main goal would be to bring in a pro to discuss how property values have not suffered due to FFL and other home business activity (permitted or non-permitted), I could be thrown a curveball by a board member or another protesting neighbor.

Trouble is that my nextdoor neighbor is a buddy, I really like him, we look after each other's stuff, says the same Karen is making him want to list his house for sale and move out of an HOA. If I file an appeal, the City will plant another sign in my yard and I don't want that to cause problems if he lists his house for sale. And my not appealing for that reason kind of defeats my claim that property values wouldn't be affected. So I'm considering two other options.

Since ATF did not process my application and said they'd refuynd my $200 fee (which I've been waiting on for two months), I'm considering re-applying and just hoping my app gets assigned to an investigator who doesn't make me get the home occupation permit. I now personally know of three other nearby home-based FFLs who were never made to get the permit. Actually, one was, but he didn't have to do the notification letters to his neighbors or have the sign in his yard. So no one is the wiser and no one protested anything.

The other avenue is to find someone in charge of code enforcement and write a very strong letter about unequal application of the law and code, giving detailed examples of the other non-permitted businesses in the neighborhood, while citing my own app denial for trying to do the right thing.

Exactly, an idiot liberal posted this crap on another forum I frequent. The author is claiming that Florida GUN laws causing people to LEAVE the state, only the criminals who don’t want to be shot. Clearly the author is of the same brain dead mentality that claims a FFL will lower property values, but not a bunch of screaming kids at an unlicensed day care.
Keep up the good fight.

I don't think anyone can claim that property values in Phoenix have gone down anywhere in the last five years. It's insane here. In fact, by that argument, I could look at the hundred or hundreds of home-based FFLs in Phoenix and show that property values keep increasing, no matter what.

That should be fairly simple, as it is a fact that criminals are less likely to commit crimes in areas where residents have legal guns, look at that part of Georgia that got tired of being targeted from the crap in Atlanta, crime rates dropped and have stayed that way.

The property value thing sounds like pure speculation, not evidence.
As far as the home business permit goes, before you withdraw and reapply I'd do some intelligence work to see if there's been a policy directive at ATF regarding that.

For the property value argument, could you take other home based FFLs and use the property value data around their home (Zillow) to substantiate that value in fact did not decrease?

It would be as easy as a minor Power Point presentation with graphs of property values before and since an FFL was issued. I think the slope on that graph would look like 45 deg or more. But they could throw totally different issues at me in the appeal hearing - number of for vs. against letters and emails from neighbors, in which case I'd lose instantly.

ATF started enforcing the local zoning stuff 20+ yrs ago when gun-friendly states started passing state pre-emption laws to make it impossible for cities and counties to pass more stringent gun laws than what the state had at the state level.

I vividly remember my FFL in NoVA losing his FFL over this. The man was a home builder, so he knew a thing or two about zoning and probably had some connections in Fairfax Co. The County couldn't shut him down, but they could tighten up on zoning to restrict business activity that generated traffic. And I remember a few times going to his house and waiting in a line in front of his front door, he was that busy sometimes. ATF used the county zoning to not renew his FFL.

It's pretty well established now that ATF enforces local zoning code, which chaps my ass. But the real problem is how selective, arbitrary or capricious zoning permits or variances are, according to emotions on the product being sold or transferred.

Anyway, all this BS makes me feel like selling a gun private party, just because I can with no FFL. If you live in AZ, this will be face to face, cash and carry, no paperwork. If outside AZ, it has to be sent to your FFL. She's a beauty and I have several more. PM me for details.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...95d79aa1c2.jpg

Beautiful :cool:

You should've sent Christmas cards to 'em ...

Either GTF out of a HOA or quit pissin' into the wind....

Sell everything face-to-face ... legally on yer front lawn .... set up a lemonade stand too ;)

Rick, you’re the reason I already have multiple Sigs!

I agree with you on the F2F transactions. Anything to keep the government out of your life is a good thing. ATF is one of the many unconstitutional government agencies that I would love to see dissolved.

Well, I can't change the law and the fact is that having an FFL makes it a lot easier to make money selling guns. Sure, I can do it FTF here and even to friends and mutual friends only. But then I can only sell what I can find at a great deal. And, to be on the right side of the law, I'd need to keep it for a while before selling, then call it "rotating my collection." If I were allowed to use USPS, even to just ship to other FFLs, that'd make a huge difference.

BTW, I was talking with another home-based FFL yesterday, who was made to get the home occupation permit from Phoenix, but was not made to send notifcation letters or have a sign in his yard. He had an insured $3600 gun stolen by a USPS contractor and they refused to pay the claim. ATF even recovered the gun in a subsequent crime scene, hasn't returned it and it's been several years. So I guess I'm no worse off, just lying to FedEx or UPS and shipping ground and not notifying them what's in the box.

When i had my c&r, i wouldn’t tell FedEx what was in the box. None of their business.

Right. My concern there was that they'd never pay a claim on an insured item if it wasn't properly disclosed. And sometimes the addressee kind of gives it away. But contrary to what most believe, you don't have to tell them, as long as you're shipping to an FFL. It breaks their rules, but their rules ain't the law. And as long as USPS can deny claims on insured and proper shipments, why not go common carrier and keep it quiet?

Might be a happy ending on the horizon. I was just visiting my guitar and amp techs, who share a pretty good sized commercial space near Deer Valley Airport. They are both gun guys and close friends. They were complaining about their most recent rent hike. They have two very small office spaces they just use for some storage and are willing to rent one to me for a very nominal amount. That gets me a commercially zoned address, which probably gets me a near automatic approval from ATF once I go through all the address change paperwork and reapply. There was an SOT FFL (machine gun builder) in the space next to theirs, so I know it's correctly zoned for this stuff. And this place is a lot closer to the neighborhoods where I work in my regular insurance job. So once we can figure out the logistics of accepting shipments, secure storage, business hours, etc, I think I'll be back in business.

Score! This sounds like a much better deal all around.

I still plan to go scorched Earth on this furniture builder who opposed my app, unless he can convince me his wife sent the letter without his knowledge. And I will let the zoning administrator know that code is being egregiously ignored or selectively applied and it needs to be rectified.

Possibly a good outcome.

Those neighbors would not like me at all, esp the furniture builder.

Awesome Rick, sounds like a good outcome. I know you aren’t planning a full up retail storefront but are you planning to open wholesale accounts and buy/sell as requested by customers? I typically buy online and ship to a local FFL, might as well buy from you.

Meh, I dunno. I don't know that I can afford to buy stock in large enough quantities to make the price profitable for me. And then I'd need significant secure storage for stocking inventory. However, I have not looked into the drop shipping thing yet. I want to be able to pounce on deals I stumble upon and flip for a profit. And FFL covers me there.

Yeah I have no idea how much a wholesale account saves you if your volume is low. When I had my dealership I was able to save a meaningful amount on parts and accessories with wholesale despite low volume, and I know there was even more to be had if I bought more.

Well, I need to look into putting stuff on Gunbroker I can drop ship, but I don't know how it works there with guns. I did on eBay once or twice, just to see if it worked and it did. But for the moment, I'd be happy to cover my rent and make $200/mo with in-person transfers for a while.

Great news Rick! If you can swing the commercial rental that would be great. Maybe set yourself up with an LLC and get some tax write-offs.

I use Gunbroker and ship to an FFL in Simi Valley. You can register with GB and it will give buyers in your area the ability to use you immediately when they win an auction, no muss no fuss. My FFL runs $50 a transfer where most charge $75-100 here in Calif.

And with your FFL operating outside the HOA you got no stink on you. Go after those using their homes for commercial purposes. Who's the "Karen" now? :D

$50-$75 a transfer?! Mine charges $20!

My FFL charges $15, but he lives so far away. The closest brick and mortar FFL charges $45 for non-NFA stuff and $125 for NFA. The one I used for my machine gun charged $40, but again, was so far away. I'd probably charge $20 and the $15 if more than than one at a time. Not gonna bother with NFA stuff.

One problem with being listed in those directories as an FFL is that total strangers order guns and have them shipped to you. Every FFL I've ever talked with has told me stories of guns just landing on their porch, no signature required and no name or contact info in the package. The FFL has to take it and just wait until someone calls and claim it. Not good.

Anyway, I emailed the city zoning dept about the address where I want to sublease and they said it's all good to go, just need a sign-off from the Fire Dept. if I want to deal with ammo, which I do not. Now all I need it some documentation from the landlord that he's cool with the sublease and then I can re-apply and my approval a near done deal.

LOL ... Karen Lee's Sig Emporium!!!

Funny how things just work out some times ...

Big Azz Neon signs :)