Looks like good news for the NFA crowd. http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/12/foghorn/atf-hires-new-nfa-examiners/
Knowing how the federal government works, it will probably be a couple months before these new examiners are hired, trained, and become full pledge examiners.
Nice! I’m sure it’ll take some time for them to come up to speed and be productive, but I have a bunch of NFA purchases planned for the coming year, so this is good to hear.
I’m sure the suppressor companies would like this. I know some people who are turned off by the 6+ month wait, if ATF could get it down to the 3-4 month wait i think it would become immensely more popular.
Before the first Obama Apocalypse the average time was around 60-90 days. So maybe this is good news. However I have some reservations about anything the NFATCA says because they don’t have everyone’s interest mind in my opinion.
Or maybe it is because they are getting ready to reclassify a whole bunch of title one stuff as title 2. The next generation assault weapons ban.
I was at the Small Arms Review show last week and the NFA Branch Chief said that they expected the new examiners to be processing paperwork next Spring.
Jakie
If that were true they would be hiring nine thousand, not nine considering you are talking tens of millions of weapons.
The nine new Examiners they have announced will, barely if then, get things back to where they were before the hiring freeze prevented them from hiring replacements for those who had quit, transferred or retired.
I don’t get the warm and fuzzies from this either. Why would O care about how long NFA approvals take? He can’t even pass a budget but he puts the NFA Branch as a priority? I think F&F was a program to make so-called “assault weapons” look bad but it went south after Agent Terry was killed.
Robb,
I doubt if O even knows anything about NFA approvals, that is way down in the weeds for someone at his level. In the grand scheme of the .gov, the NFA branch is gnat shit. It ain’t to us but we aren’t normal either.
More likely the ATF managers got sick of fielding complaints from Congressional Staffers about the backlog and akward queries as to why they weren’t filling funded vacancies. They didn’t need to get WH approval to fill existing positions.
9 New Examiners will at best, get them back where they once were manpower-wise.
Obama doesn’t even know that Egypt is or at least was an ally. He did not know that the US Government does not recognize a country called Myanmar preferring the name Burma. His wife didn’t know not to hug Queen Elizabeth. These people have no idea what is happening in the bureaucracy.
Wish they had the new people working already. I am waiting on a few items.
I think it’s easier to list the things O does know: Dog is edible, conservatives are all racist, and a gram is running about $120 on his favorite corner…
I won’t read into it, but I have heard the same rumors you are talking about and it scares me. If “assault weapons” were to be classified as NFA items as some have suggested it would probably stand a legal challenge and the price of shit would skyrocket.
The government would also rake in shitloads of cash, but not enough to save us.
The President knows a hell of a lot more than you give him credit for. The trouble is, most of what he knows is wrong.
Interesting development. I could see the GOP, who is under significant fire from liberals (and some conservatives) for being “out of touch”, going along with some form of assault weapon curtailment as they try to find their way in an increasingly liberal political landscape. There are presidential elections in just 4 years. That’s a short time frame for them to reinvent themselves. The key question in my mind is whether or not such a new ban would have any kind of grandfather clause, or if all of a sudden my ARs will just be illegal to possess.
Anyway, bearing in mind that the last AWB didn’t affect NFA weapons and considering that, for some reason, the number of NFA examiners is supposedly being expanded, I just send in a Form 1 for a receiver I have sitting around. I registered it as an 11.5. I may not actually put a short barrel on it, but I don’t see much downside to having it on the NFA registry. While I was at it, I had the Sheriff’s office print up a couple of extra fingerprint cards. I might register one of my other non-SBR rifles too.
The interesting thing, to me, is that if all ARs become title II/NFA weapons, I would think the market for 16" rifles would disappear. No sense NOT going with an SBR at that point.
Except for performance issues…a 16 inch barrel has about 400 fps over an 11.5 and gas systems can be a little finicky.
Even if Obama is behind this to some extent we all know he will not negotiate, just look at what’s going on with taxes…
The interesting thing, to me, is that if all ARs become title II/NFA weapons, I would think the market for 16" rifles would disappear. No sense NOT going with an SBR at that point.
Wouldn’t this make it a 2 stamp firearm though? My understanding of the original ban was that you could SBR one of the neutered ARs but still could not then add on “evil” features just because it had a tax stamp.
Or, would this be similar to the full auto versus SBR thing where a full auto takes precedence over SBR so barrel length doesn’t matter?
I’m thinking ATF wouldn’t let SBR overrule “evil assault rifle” unless the associated legal text specifically laid it out that way. Similar to that AAC Honeybadger prototype that was a machine gun but also had some kind of suppressor-related expansion chamber on it that required a second stamp.
My head hurts now.