Firearms Expert Witness Daniel O'Kelly

Daniel G. O'Kelly has over 46 years of experience as a range instructor, firearm designer, builder, auditor of licensees, collector, and expert on firearms and ammunition. 

Mr. O'Kelly served for 11 years as a Police Officer and for 23 years as a Special Agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). As one of ATF’s leading firearm experts, he was Lead Instructor of Firearm Technology at the ATF National Academy. Since his retirement from the ATF, he has served as a Senior Corporate Manager for Cabela’s, the then largest firearm retailer in the world, where he co-developed a firearm technology and ATF compliance training program for that company, and is the Founder/Director of IFSA. 

Mr. O'Kelly then founded and is the Director of, the International Firearm Specialist Academy (IFSA), a guild of award-winning experts, former Federal Agents, Investigators, Police Officers, Medical Doctors, and an Attorney, in the Firearm and Forensics field.

Litigations Support -  Mr. O'Kelly has testified continually in depositions and in criminal & civil cases in State, Superior, Circuit, District and Federal Courts since 1978, and has been recognized as an expert witness in Federal and State courts since 1990. He has opined on the topics of:

 Noteworthy Cases

• Retained as Defense expert in the Alec Baldwin case.
• Testified in four Federal trials on the topic of federal firearm definitions from 2014 to 2019 which resulted in ATF undertaking a 2-5 year rewrite of the definition of a firearm “frame or receiver”, which reached a SCOTUS decision in 2022. 
• Testified in trials wherein 1289 items of firearm-related evidence were ruled out by the Court as a direct result of his testimony.
• Worked undercover in three international illicit arms dealing cases, including the Diveroli case which sparked the movie "War Dogs", and is one of two ATF Agents to ever perform an undercover investigation of illicit international firearm trafficking in Europe.   

View Daniel O'Kelly's Consulting Profile.