We are happy to report that ASA's diligent work has led to a historical accomplishment! As of Monday morning, NFA examiners are back to work processing consumer transfer forms—the first time this has happened during a government shutdown.
We spoke to contacts within the NFA Division yesterday. Here is what we know:
The entire staff of NFA examiners returned to work Monday morning.
Processing of Forms 2 and 3 began in earnest, along with any Form 4 applications that were submitted to FBI NICS before the shutdown and received an approved background check during the NFA furlough.
Form 4s submitted to the eForms system since October 1 have been submitted to NICS, and as soon as background check approvals begin rolling in, examiners will start approving them.
We do not anticipate any significant increase in transfer times beyond a few days as NFA gets back up to speed.
Some non-processing-related tasks, such as general correspondence, FOIA requests, etc., may not be worked on during the shutdown, since examiners were explicitly authorized to return to work to process NFA transfer forms.
