Court Opinion

ID: 9475651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:34:20.81926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:50.912827
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I agree essentially with the majority’s opinion and write separately only to comment additionally on 18 U.S.C. § 923(g).
In order to conduct an administrative inspection of a firearms dealer’s business premises, the government must ordinarily rely, as it does here, on 18 U.S.C. § 923(g) and the implementing regulation. The statute and regulation authorize a search only when the agents enter the premises during business hours. Here, the agents entered well before that time. Thus, the statute and regulations, on their face, do not authorize the agents’ subsequent conduct.
Had the agents’ search conducted under the search warrant pursuant to their lawful entry lasted past the commencement of business hours, it could be argued that it would be pointless to require them to leave the premises and reenter immediately in order to conduct an administrative inspection. No such argument can be made here, however. Having completed their lawful business under the search warrant well before the start of business hours, there was no justification for the agents remaining on the premises or conducting an administrative inspection during non-business hours.
The government’s argument that the agents were on the premises lawfully, while relevant to its “plain view” theory, does not serve to bring their activities within the purview of 18 U.S.C. § 923(g). The statute authorizes searches only when agents enter during business hours, not whenever agents happen to be on the premises for other reasons. While it may be possible to construe the statute as authorizing the performance of administrative inspections when agents are already lawfully on the premises at the time business hours commence, it is not possible to reasonably construe it as authorizing agents to conduct inspections whenever they are able to gain lawful entry to the premises. The construction proposed by the government would leave little, if anything, of the business hours requirement.