The amount of people with a Federal Firearms License is on the rise, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

There are now 59 invididuals or businesses in Butler County with such a license and 62 in Warren County, two areas that saw increases in such licensure in the past four years, according to data culled from ATF report data by the Hamilton JournalNews/Middletown Journal.

“There has been an increase an application for Federal Firearms Licensees nationally, (as well),” said Special Agent David Coulson, spokesman for ATF’s Columbus division, which handles all such requests in Ohio and Indiana. “There was a shift about 10 or 15 years ago when they had a fee schedule change in the cost to become an FFL.

“At that time, there were a lot of dealers who turned their licensure it and didn’t want to pay the fee. The tide slowly turned and there’s still been an increase despite the cost.”

ATF records do not allow for differentiation between those who sell from storefronts and those who sell from other premises, Coulson said.

Despite tough economic times, gun shops will continue to be a viable business to open because “you’re never going to have a shortage of enthusiasts,” said Jason Wedder of Millville-based Mike’s Guns LLC, which opened in December 2011.

“Everybody who has a hobby, they want to make money doing it,” Wedder said. “Some people are lucky enough to be business-savvy enough and have the motivation and the intestinal fortitude to see something like that through.”

Opening any business entails taking on a tremendous risk, he said, but even more so in the gun business because ‘the community is entirely fickle.’”

“They want what they want and they want it now,” he said. “If you can’t get it now, they’ll go to the next guy. Unfortunately in situations like that, a smaller shop just can’t deliver because we don’t have the buying power of some of these other larger retailers and we don’t have the established connections and the business relationships that some of these places have been working on over the past 10 years.”

While smaller stores don’t have the buying power, they do offer better customer service and a deeper background of knowledge, gun store owners said.

Like any business, gun shop owners must deal with typical matters, such as insurance and zoning when they open their store.

But then there’s the process of applying for a Federal Firearms License, which involves submitting the paperwork and a licensure fee, then waiting for the application to be processed.

Once that has occurred, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stop by for fingerprinting and an in-depth interview that typically lasts several hours.

“If they OK that, you have to have a storefront to sell items,” said Doug Thompson of Thompsons Guns in Madison Twp. “You can’t just buy a license and sell out of your house anymore like you used to. The distributors won’t sell to you unless you have an open storefront.”

Those who opt to sell from home cannot avail themselves of the full range of larger distributors and end up paying more for merchandise, said Thompson, who opened his business six years ago and made it a full-time endeavor four years ago.

Any rise in the amount of guns shops is most likely attributable to people looking for work, he said.

“Everybody’s trying to find something to do so you see a lot more people getting their Federal Firearms License and trying to start a business,” Thompson said. “Right now, with the gun world, what better a business is there to get into?”

At 22Three in Lebanon, which opened in late 2011, co-owner Wendy Monroe said it helps greatly that her husband Jeff, a former Xavier University criminal justice professor who runs the 22Three think tank, understands what’s happening on a policy level regarding gun rights and what the ramifications could be.

“I think historically a lot of people get into this business because it’s the evolution of a hobby,” Monroe said. “For us, it’s really more an evolution of duty. The training that we provide is really important and we’ll work our tail off to help a customer find that firearm that’s right for them and try to be accessible to people who are new to guns so they can feel safe.”

The ongoing regulations and paperwork of the gun business are more involved than what it takes to get started, she said.

“Every time we sell a fire arm, they have to fill out a form and I have to call in a background check,” Monroe said. “If they buy two or more handguns, there’s an extra form I would have to fill out.”

Keeping record via an acquisitions and distributions book is critical, Monroe said.

Every time a gun shop dealer purchases a firearm from a dealer, they must keep a record of a plethora of items, including the serial number, the date the sale was called in, where it came from, the dealer’s FFL number, the form number the customer filled out and the the exact model, type and caliber of the firearm.

“You go buy a sweatshirt, all they have to keep track of is the sales tags,” Monroe said.

The recent rush to buy guys has hurt more than it’s helped, Wedder said.

“We don’t have the purchasing power of a place like Dick’s or Dunham’s or Walmart for that matter,” Wedder said. “They can afford to buy a lot of inventory cheap and sit on it, whereas when we buy inventory, we buy it to sell immediately.”

Now with inventory shortages from last month’s “panic rush,” local gun shop owners say it’s incredibly difficult to keep the shelves stocked.

“The sales are good but people are buying so much, we’re getting to where we can’t find nothing to sell,” Thompson said. “The people are speaking right now. They want the government to understand that they don’t want their rights taken away, so they’re buying everything they can and stockpiling it.”

With customers snapping up firearms at a breakneck pace, manufacturers often can’t keep up.

“So now the gun stores are sitting here with nothing to sell,” Thompson said. “With the online availability, they can go on the Internet and buy from all over the country.”

Storefront dealers buy at a fixed price and sell at a slightly higher price, he said. Profit margins are minimal.

“The people making the most profit on this rush are private sellers, because they’re the guys who have had this stuff,” Wedder said. “They’re just sitting on it, and they say ‘The price just peaked at $2,500 for this rifle. I paid $750 for it. I think I’m going to sell it. Those are the people making the money.”