MARTINSBURG, WVA –-(Ammoland.com)- According to a leaked Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) leadership conference call obtained by AmmoLand News, Industry Operations Investigators (IOIs) that the ATF has assigned to a temporary detail with the National Firearms Act division have not been pulling their weight and are missing their target goals.
In regular times, the IOIs are responsible for visiting Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders and conducting industry inspections. These tasks include inspecting the FFL’s bound book to verify that firearms are correctly cataloged and transferred, checking that the dealers’ customers have correctly filled out the 4473 form and the dealer has processed it, answering FFLs questions about regulations, and making sure the FFLs are following all applicable firearms laws.
512,315 Nation Firearms Act Applications in 2020
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ATF has temporarily moved several at-risk IOIs who cannot work in the field to the NFA division to help process incoming NFA requests. 512,315 plus in 2020, according to ATF recent documents. The ATF leadership is not happy with these employee’s performance on their detail. The top brass at the bureau plans to have a conference call with the IOIs assigned to the NFA division detail to reinforce what they expect from ATF employees working in the division. The ATF leadership didn’t lay out the target metrics and how much the IOIs were missing these metrics.
The ATF leadership expects some or all of the IOIs to request a transfer after the conference call. The ATF leadership did not share the number of IOIs currently on the temporary detail with the NFA Division. While these inspectors are on assignment with the NFA division, the number of industry inspections has plummeted. To combat the lack of assessments made by current IOIs, the ATF will be hiring nearly 100 more IOIs to help do the ATF employees’ work that cannot or will not work in the field because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The call’s leadership did not give a timeline for hiring the new IOIs but stated that the human resources department has already approved the requisition request. The leadership requested that hiring managers clearly detail the reason for passing on any candidate.
The leadership is worried that someone will ask for the reasons for the rejections through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. AmmoLand News spoke with a few attorneys who deal with FOIA requests, and they believe that this information would not be FOIAable due to personel privacy concerns.
The conference call didn’t make it clear to where the ATF will reassign these at-risk employees. Some believe that the inspectors will want to take a temporary detail in a division that isn’t as visible as the NFA division. The ATF administration does not think that the IOIs on the detail will be able to return to the field for the foreseeable future due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The ATF leadership on the call also did not state if the NFA division positions left vacant by the IOIs that request a new temporary assignment will be backfilled or just left empty. Nor did they mention an improved plan to process and/or speed up approvals for the flood of NFA applications the agency is receiving from U.S. citizens. AmmoLand News is firing off several FOIA requests to try to fill in the gaps about the NFA division.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
Plenty of fresh illegal invaders to take those jobs.
The question I have is this:
Since the ATF, BATF, ATFE was formed ILLEGALLY by the IRS as a TAX GATHERING OFFICE, IT CONSTITUTIONALLY MUST BE STRIPPED OF ALL ABILITIES of CREATING ILLEGAL RULES, REGULATIONS and LAWS which are ILLEGALLY ENFORCED!! BECAUSE CONGRESS did NOT do the FORMATION of the “atf” bureaucracy, IT IS ILLEGAL!!
When will the IRS’ illegally created ATF BUREAUCRACY be ABORTED, REMOVED, BANNED, DEFUNDED and relegated to the DUST BINS of history?
Great job for second amendment foundation people stop the snoops from within
panic-demonic
What happens when two or more of those rich old men show up at your home at the same time? Do they share and split your fee or do you have the unexpected ones “take a number and have a seat”?
This is the first GOOD NEWS I’ve seen about the WuFlu yet. ATF agents so scared of their own twisted shadows they’re afraid to walk into an FFL’s store and sit down for a spell, pore over his Bound Book, maybe even try and sneak a scanner out of his pocket to record whole pages (an illegal act) while he thinks no one is watching him. All because of an alledged virus no one has yet isolated, and which has in infection rate and infectious death rate lower than the annual flu bugs they’ve got vaccines for that sort of… Read more »
After domestic enemies stole control of our federal government how many folks decided against even bothering to file forms to aquire a nfa item?
Whos spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars and the transfer tax thinking that in a few months they’ll get approved and pickup their purchase?
I was strongly considering a 9mm suppressor but im not risking my money.
We’re in the interesting period before we become chained like a dog or have a 1861 style party. Nfa? Ha
More info about the perp in the New Orleans gun shop shooting:
New Orleans man, 27, at center of Jefferson Gun Outlet shootout that left him, 2 others dead: sources | Crime/Police | nola.com
If only the ATF had been there this would not have happened!
3 dead, 2 injured after shooting inside Louisiana gun store, officials say – ABC News (go.com)