NFA Modernization and Reform

Hey everyone!! As we are getting our community built and as you all begin to engage more, I wanted to take a few minutes to share a little bit about my recent trip to Washington DC with the American Suppressor Association for their Industry Forum.

Its an honor to represent YOU ALL and retailers across America on behalf of the American Suppressor Association as we work towards to process efficiencies, modernization and lots more! The ASA carefully chooses their guests on these trips to represent a “cross-section” of our industry. I was there with silencer and ammunition manufacturers, compliance specialists, distributors, and a selection of retailers including our friends at SilencerShop . We had meetings at the White House and at the NFA Branch to learn about improvements since our last trip (or the lack there of!) and discuss ways to improve the process through various avenues of approval. Also during some of these meetings, we’re able to look at the data on the influxes of the market and trends over the last couple of years.

This past week, the NFA Branch began implementing a new efficiency process to speed up the process for SOME form 4 applications. While there is still much room for improvement, they’re now using “lanes” to process forms who’s background checks are approved more quickly than others (think: instead of everyone standing in one line, waiting for a delay, they’re sending the batches of forms for background checks and only holding the ones delayed) and they’re also beginning to “batch” forms that are for the same person but submitted at different times (essentially, shortening the “line” and making the most of the background check approvals)… lots of “common sense” improvements but still integrating that into an already tremendous backlog (if you’re waiting, you know!)

Something else exciting the ASA is working on is standardizing sound testing for consumer comparison. This will help the end user be able to see how one particular silencer compares to another. Lots of scientific standards and research behind the scenes to work towards implementing these standards! Can’t wait to see this take shape in the months to come and keep y’all updated on that!

Another short-term goal of the ASA is to work on getting appropriations for the “next” government shutdown that would allow the NFA to continue working to avoid another complete stalling of paperwork approvals and wait times.

Many of the MAJOR initiatives from the NFA Branch/ATF require the appointment of a new ATF director… if you’ve been following along, that seat has been vacant for quite sometime and we’re working to get someone in the spot who is ON OUR TEAM and can move forward with some of the small things that can make a HUGE difference… and while I’ll certainly share the progress on that, it’ll be national news when the time comes 🙂

So many great discussions and ways for improvement… Government work couldn’t be slower, but its awesome to have these conversations and keep trying to work towards the goal! I cannot express this enough… it TRULY is an honor to be in the room for these discussions and representing YOU and our entire industry. I didn’t want to get “too wordy” here–its LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to summarize the weeks worth of excitment, happenings, and discussions in a blog post, but I wanted to share a little bit of what I saw and learned!