You "did" read the part about the new BATF**K regulations requiring a physical storefront, didn't you?? THAT is where they went--driven out of business by over-regulation--just like a lot of other legitimate businesses.
Only in this case the legal requirement was one made of NO OTHER TYPE OF BUSINESS. "Physical storefronts" are useful if you are a certain type of business, or your volume is large, but as I said, there are literally tens of thousands of legitimate business that do NOT require "physical storefronts".
So yes, they were legitimate dealers.
As to whether or not you "buy it", I could give a flying ****.
Nope. Never saw it. Maybe you'd better point that out for me. Can you?