A Federal Firearms License is not a shield. The regulations governing your license say plainly that federal rules exist in addition to, not in place of, any other law touching commerce in firearms or ammunition — which means state statutes, local ordinances, and other federal provisions all remain fully in force alongside Part 478. Holding a license does not narrow what else applies to you; it adds one more layer on top of everything else already there.

This matters most at the point where federal and state law diverge. The license itself confers no right to conduct business contrary to state or other law, and a licensee is not protected from punishment under state law simply because the activity is lawful — or even licensed — at the federal level. The reverse is equally true: complying with a state law gives you no immunity from federal law or regulations. The two systems are checked separately, and passing one check says nothing about the other.

Because dealers cannot be expected to track every state and local firearms law on their own, the Director compiles the relevant state laws and published ordinances into a list, incorporated by reference in the Federal Register, revised annually, and furnished to licensees under this part. That compilation is what the regulation points a licensee to for the state-law layer sitting on top of their federal obligations. How it is distributed in practice, and under what publication number, is not fixed by the regulation itself — ask ATF rather than assume.