USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “The FBI has taken the position that it will not allow you to appeal your FBI background check and denial for an NFA [National Firearms Act] Transaction,” attorney Stephen Stamboulieh announced Monday. “Yes, the FBI conducts the background check, denies you, and provides the NTN [NICS Transaction Number] for your denial, but… no appeal for you!”
“[T]he Appeal Services Team (AST) of the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division’s NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] Section does not process appeal requests for the NFA background checks,” appellant Kevin Francisco Borquez was told in an unsigned letter from the FBI dated June 12. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
“A NICS check is not required on the transfer of NFA items,” Historic Arms, LLC President Len Savage advised (See Section B, item 20 on page 2 of ATF Form 4473 and corresponding instructions on page 6). “However, the FBI does receive fingerprints and does a more extensive background check that includes use of the NICS prior to ATF NFA branch even beginning the transfer process.”
In the case of NICS appeals, a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Stamboulieh produced the admission that the FBI “stopped processing front-end [appeals] mail on 11/25/2015.”
In Borquez’s NFA case, he maintains he has wrongly been denied a fundamental right by gatekeepers that got it wrong. And based on their response, FBI bureaucrats apologized but won’t do anything about it except return materials he submitted in his inquiry.
Does failure to tell an inquiring citizen who does process such appeal requests mean no one does?
“I didn’t believe it until I saw the document. I’m not sure how this is legal or proper, but we are looking into it,” Stamboulieh responded. “So basically, the FBI is denying you based on its database, and then wholesale refuses to allow you to appeal it. Smells like a due process violation.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
“How dare the American People elect such a rough, uncouth, man – suffering from Twitter-mania – as President, when we – The Guardians of the Galaxy – know what is best!”
So, you wish to avail yourself of an NFA weapon, you should have thought of that before disregarding the wishes of your betters.
As they say: Elections Have Consequences!
James Higginbotham: The ATF/BATFE had at one time been described as “welfare for ex prohibition agents”, Repeal having killed off their employment/reason for existence. As for what is currently the FBI, I do not believe that their creation was related to Prohibition or the repeal thereof. In any case, regarding government agencies, and the employees thereof, the following might interest you. Once upon a time, some congressman offered legislation aimed at limiting government agencies. He proposed that the number of people employed at/by the Bureau of Indian Affairs never exceed the number of Indians whose affairs the agency looked after.… Read more »
It seems, more and more, that the FBI has become a law until itself. HOw the hell did this come to pass, seems a question for the populace to pose, which our elected things should be required to answer.
Another error in hiring, Trump put this, obstructionist, Wray in charge and look what he got, the same he got with the DOJ. I don’t understand what his plan is here but he must have one to allow these two jokers along with Rosenstein run the opposite of what should be done. The FBI not fixing a problem they caused is outrageous behavior. You would never get away with this in private business and stay in business.
As with any bureaucracy it is the people at the top who run it. Pput a bunch of left wing socialists and burgeoning communists (by their behavior) in charge of an organization like the IRS or FBI and it is little or no different from what happens in NOW other third world countries. It is stunning that these outcasts can simply refuse Congress…