## Facts

- Loarn Anthony Biswell operated a pawn shop and held a federal license to deal in sporting weapons.
- A city police officer and a federal Treasury agent entered the shop during business hours to conduct an inspection authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 923(g).
- The agent inspected Biswell’s records and requested access to a locked storeroom where firearms were kept.
- Biswell asked whether the agent had a warrant; the agent said no and stated the statute authorized the inspection, providing Biswell a copy of § 923(g).
- Biswell unlocked the storeroom after reading the provision.
- The agent found and seized two sawed-off rifles that Biswell was not licensed to possess.
- Biswell was indicted and convicted for dealing in firearms without paying a required special occupational tax.
- The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding § 923(g) unconstitutional as authorizing warrantless searches and treating Biswell’s consent as invalid; it suppressed the rifles.

## Issues

1. Whether a warrantless inspection of a federally licensed firearms dealer’s locked storeroom, conducted during business hours under 18 U.S.C. § 923(g), violates the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether the statutory inspection scheme provides a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant in a pervasively regulated industry.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded.
- The Court held that the warrantless inspection and seizure conducted under § 923(g) did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
- The Court concluded that firearms dealing is a pervasively regulated business and that unannounced inspections are an essential enforcement tool within the statutory program.
- Because the statute validly authorized the inspection, the Court did not rely on consent to uphold the search.

## Legal Principles

- In a pervasively regulated industry, warrantless administrative inspections of commercial premises may be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when authorized by a comprehensive and defined regulatory scheme.
- A regulatory inspection program can substitute for a warrant if it provides notice and limits the inspection’s time, place, and scope to enforce compliance.
- Licensed firearms dealers have a reduced expectation of privacy regarding records, firearms, and storage areas covered by the licensing and inspection regime.
- Unannounced inspections may be permitted when necessary to make the regulatory program effective and to deter noncompliance.
- When the government’s asserted statutory authority to inspect is valid, the legality of the search does not depend on voluntary consent.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld § 923(g)’s warrantless inspection authority as applied to a licensed firearms dealer’s locked storeroom during business hours, holding that the statute’s limited, industry-specific inspection scheme makes such searches reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.


United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972)