SHOT Show ATF Town Hall

[wlake75]

I had the pleasure of attending the ATF Town Hall at SHOT today and thought I would pass on some of the information disseminated there. The information that I was delivered by Stephen Albro the Division Chief of Firearms & Explosives Services Division.

NFA processed 137,000 application in 2012
NFA currently has a backlog of 37,000 applications
Turn around time is approx. 6 months (my Form 4 transfers have been more like 7-8 months)
In 2012, more than $1 million per month was collected in transfer fees
March of 2013 is expected to exceed $2 million
NFA has authorization to hire 9 new examiners, job posting will be done in the next few days, no time frame as to when this will actually be completed
The hiring of 12 Research Assistants has been very successful in his opinion
Form 1-5 will be in E-Form format by June 2013 (anticipated)

The only issue I have here is the success of the Research Assistants. While I am sure they have been a help, I have had forms kicked back for discrepancies that have never been an issue before. For example, a list of multiple calibers in the caliber box has been sent back with instructions that only one caliber can be in this box, all other calibers should be listed as additional calibers in box 4h, or when transferring to an entity (Trust or Corp) Section 15 must list the individual, position, and the name of the entity where as before we only listed the individual and position.

Some of these things may have already been discussed, but I just wanted to pass on what was discussed today.

As a side note, a question was asked as to the legality of renting dealer sample machine guns. The answer was as long as it was done on premises under supervision it is not an issue.

[ExecDirector]

ATF had nixed using the term "multi" or similar in the caliber designation box quite awhile ago. They need one specific number. Many examiners were pretty buried and may have let this change slip through because that is the "the way they always did it..."

The additional examiners are expected to be on board by June, as well, and full productivity is expected by Christmas (rigorous training, etc.). As for the contract research assistants, we were told that ATF would not only push for renewal of the contract, but an expansion of it. "We would like to double the number of contractors." This would be a huge help to our community if we are going to continue buyin NFA items like bottled water!

[Shermanator]

Form 1-5 will be in E-Form format by June 2013 (anticipated)

This is the one I'm interested in. How would this work for submitting finger prints? I can see uploading a photo to the form and it being inserted in. Also how would you do the orginal inked signature?

[ExecDirector]

This is all speculation at this point. I suspect that ATF will finally be moving toward the digital fingerprints that the rest of the world is using. There are various digital signature methods that have been embraced in the eyes of the legal and financial communities; as to which one might be used...?

[wlake75]

Details/specifics were not discussed. I imagine it would make the process substantially different, just as it appears will happen for corporate owners when the CLEO signature goes away.