Town may allow residents to sell guns from home

The Town of Saukville Plan Commission on Jan. 9 directed that an ordinance be drafted to allow gun sales as a home occupation for residents with a federal firearms license.

According to officials, the town was recently approached by a resident who expressed interest in obtaining a federal firearms license to sell guns from his home. The sale of firearms is currently a prohibited home occupation.

Kevin Kimmes, chairman of the commission and the Town Board, said the resident has not filed an application yet. But he said the plan commission wanted to begin working on the issue due to the high level of firearm use and interest in the Saukville area.

“A registered federal firearms license allows you to, if you have one private sale to another private person ... to make sure the transaction happens under the proper background checks,” Kimmes said. “(The resident) is wanting to be able to facilitate that as an at-home occupation.”

The resident’s name was not available without an application, Kimmes said.

Commission members instructed town staff to draft a proposed ordinance and schedule a public hearing, which has been set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, at Saukville Town Hall, 3762 Lakeland Rd.

The commission will discuss the ordinance that night after the hearing.

Plan Commission members agreed that home-based firearm businesses should be limited to people with a type one federal firearm license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A type one license restricts the license holder’s activities to the sale of guns, excluding the sale of destructive devices like explosives.

Kimmes said during an interview that the resident would not keep an inventory of firearms at the home if the ordinance change is approved.

Instead, Kimmes said, the resident intends to facilitate online gun sales by conducting background checks for local residents.

Kimmes provided an example.

“Let’s say I’m buying a gun from someone in Texas,”  Kimmes said. “The seller will say, ‘You need to find a local FFL to do a background check.’ You pay a small fee and then the seller in Texas knows he won’t be selling to someone who shouldn’t  buy it.

“This is a way to ensure there won’t be any loopholes,” Kimmes said.

Once the background check is done, the gun would be shipped to the home of the federal firearms license holder for the buyer to pick up, Kimmes said.

According to town documents, a conditional use permit would also need to be approved for each licensed property selling guns.

“If the Plan Commission is interested in amending the zoning code to allow for the sale of firearms as a home occupation, additional standards could be added to the code or considered as part of a conditional use permit to address possible concerns such as number of employees, hours of operation, or obtaining an FFL within a specified timeframe,” according to town documents.

Under the draft ordinance, the number of firearm exchanges would be limited to 10 per day, officials said.