A jury acquitted a Kenai man Friday on a federal charge of dealing in firearms without a license.
Aaron Horwath, who owned Gator Guns Inc. on the Kenai Spur Highway, was charged last summer after the federal agency tasked with regulating firearms — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — said he sold guns from his store even though his federal permit had been revoked years earlier.
Steve Wells is Horwath’s attorney. He says federal prosecutors couldn’t prove that Horwath was acquiring new inventory at the same time that he was selling off the guns left in his store, which would indicate business dealings. In Alaska, a person doesn’t need a federal firearms license to conduct private gun sales.
“Once his license was revoked, he was not buying anymore firearms, and he certainly wasn’t buying any and then turning around and selling them,” Wells said.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked Horwarth’s license in 2020 citing “willful violations of federal firearms laws and regulations.” The agency said Horwath failed to record hundreds of guns sold through Gator Guns between 1982 and 2018.
Wells said those errors were clerical.
“The government describes them as missing guns, but in many ways they’re not so much missing guns as missing paperwork,” he said.
ATF inspects paperwork associated with gun purchases. Wells said Horwath’s records were never inspected by ATF over the nearly four decades he was in business. After the agency moved to electronic records, he said it was easier for the agency to identify errors.
ATF said it was contacted twice in 2021 by people who said Horwath was still selling guns from his Kenai Spur storefront, after Horwath’s license was revoked. The agency purchased three guns from the business on separate occasions undercover before charging Horwath.
But Wells said Horwath transferred his remaining inventory to himself after he lost his license. Because he was selling them in a personal capacity and wasn’t actively acquiring new inventory, Wells argued, successfully, that Horwath didn’t violate federal law.
“I think a number of the jurors just looked at this and said, ‘You know, it looks to be his inventory,’” Wells said. “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.”
ATF requires people who formerly held federal firearms licenses to get rid of their remaining inventory in a way that’s not engaged in the business of dealing firearms. The agency suggests arranging for another license holder to purchase the inventory or consigning the inventory to another license holder.
In their own trial brief, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Bradley and C. Cody Tirpak said they needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt Horwath’s activity went beyond that of a hobbyist or collector. They also had to show he devoted enough time and energy to sell guns as a business with the intent of making profits through repeated purchases and sales.
Horwath’s trial began at about 4 p.m. Thursday. Jurors returned a verdict of “not guilty” around 9 a.m. the following day.
“I was sort of, like, you know, ‘This is a serious case. Let’s think about this. Let’s sleep on it and come back tomorrow and see, does anybody have any questions? Does anybody, you know, have second thoughts?’” he said. “And it sounds like they did not.”
Because Horwath was acquitted, ATF will return all of the guns it seized through search warrants. Horwath won’t get back the firearms purchased by ATF as part of its undercover operations.
