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John, I actually thought someone might make that distinction, so please consider some other Federal Agencies that do inspections.

How about OSHA? I was surprised to find that OSHA cannot close a business as the ATF does. They can shut down a job site until corrections are made. And they can seek a Federal Court Order to close a business guilty of severe repeat violations. But that rarely happens. I once worked in a Steel Mill, and we had 5 guys killed in separate incidents in 1988 alone. Many more were very seriously injured, some permanently. Crushed, electrocuted, burned alive, and ran over by trains. Steel Mills are hot, dirty, and very dangerous under the best of circumstances. We were in bankruptcy, so many shortcuts were taken, and safety was neglected. OSHA came to investigate. They imposed fines and made the company implement Safety Training Programs. But not much changed. We were still instructed to perform maintenance on extremely powerful rolling mills, etc., without Locking Out energy sources, because that created additional downtime. I was similarly ordered to not Lock Out robots when I worked for GM, and I know it happens at a lot of companies. And guess what!!! OSHA does not shut down businesses just because they feel the business is too small.

Then consider the USDA that inspects our food supply. You can Google search to find that they very rarely permanently shut down any Meat Packing or Poultry Plants, even when there are outbreaks of salmonella, listeria, etc. Some in Congress complain that they have too little power to protect the consumer, and reports of violations are rampant. And not only that, they never ever shut down a business for being too small or selling too little product.

Then take a look at the record of the NTSB. Have you ever seen them shut down an Airline, Railroad, or Trucking Company because of safety problems or infractions? I couldn't find any companies forced out of business by NTSB Inspectors, or totally shut down due to things that sometimes endanger or kill scores of people. And again, they never shut down any Transportation Company for being too small or doing too little business.

I could go on, but you get the picture. We are supposed to be a free Constitutional Republic that runs on Capitalism and values Small Businesses and the many jobs they create. Once upon a time, we saw Anti-Trust Laws that broke up businesses like Google and Amazon that were so large that they killed competition, but that doesn't happen anymore. But Anti-Trust Laws didn't shut down businesses. They simply broke them up into smaller pieces, or prevented mergers.

Furthermore, we have a 2nd Amendment that would be pretty well neutered if Anti-Gun Democrats had their way by shutting down firearms dealers and suing firearms manufacturers into bankruptcy. ATF is Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, but they aren't closing thousands of taverns and smoke shops for selling to minors or for selling too little product. So someone please tell me why un-elected bureaucrats are permitted to shut down so many small firearms businesses for rather trivial things like minor paperwork errors or violations, forgetting to do a second NICS Background Check if a customer picks up a gun more than 30 days after the initial purchase, buying guns wholesale to sell to buddies or for your own use, or simply not selling enough guns? And just think, if you sold Hunter Biden a handgun knowing he was a crack and cocaine addict, you would be put out of business by the same Dept. of Justice that is protecting him and running out the statute of limitations clock. That was not the intent of Congress when the GCA of 1968 was passed, and the abuses always get much worse when Anti-Gun Democrats are in power. Gun owners who vote for Anti-Gun Democrats (which is nearly all of them these days) are lying on the Form 4473 about being mentally defective every time they buy a gun.