National Firearms Act Applications Hit Record Volume
The purpose of the NFA was to regulate what were considered “gangster weapons” such as machine guns and hand grenades.
Washington, DC –-(Ammoland.com)- FY2010 set a new record for the number of transfer applications received by the NFA Branch for the making, import, transfer, export and interstate movement of NFA firearms.
The National Firearms Act (“NFA”), is an Act of Congress that, in general, imposes a statutory excise tax on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms and mandates the registration of those firearms. The purpose of the NFA was to regulate what were considered “gangster weapons” such as machine guns and hand grenades.
There were more than 91,900 application forms processed in FY2010, which accounts for a 6% increase over FY2009, which had set the previous record with 86,753 applications processed. 2010 marked the sixth straight year of annual increases in NFA applications.
The overall trend is dramatic when you consider that FY2005 had a total volume of 41,579 applications.
Earlier in the year ATF released its new NFA customer service standard on the ATF website. Currently, ATF’s customer service goal is to process ATF Forms 1 and ATF
Forms 4 within 4 months of receipt of the application. The customer service standard for processing all other types of NFA applications (i.e., those which don’t generally require tax processing or background checks) is within one month of ATF’s receipt of the application.
It is important to keep in mind that incomplete or incorrect applications slow ATF’s ability to take final action.
If you wish to confirm receipt of an application by ATF or obtain a status check on a pending application, please contact our customer service contractors at the ATF NFA branch.
