An update on eForms

Posted on February 20, 2014 by John Pierce

ServersIf you have tried to create an account or submit an application at ATFOnline.gov over the last few weeks you are probably aware that the site is experiencing occasional performance issues.

Given the warm response that eForms has received from the industry, it is not surprising that the site is straining to keep up with the increased demand.

The good news is that the ATF is working hard to correct the issues.  After all, they benefit from eForms almost as much as we do.

They sent out the following update today:

“We are diligently working with experts in the field to resolve the issues. Until we can get the issues resolved we will be implementing automated restarts of the server at 4:00 am, 9:00 am, NOON, 3:00 pm, and 11:00 pm eastern time.  We have determined that the restart of the servers clears “stuck threads” on the servers and improves the overall performance of eForms.  We realize that the unscheduled restarts were disrupting your workday and this will allow you to plan around the scheduled restarts.

Restarts will take approximately one hour to complete during which time eForms will not be available.  Again, this is only a temporary measure until a more permanent solution is implemented.”

In other words, eForms will be unavailable for both dealers and individuals during the following hours (Eastern Standard Time):

4:00 am – 5:00 am

9:00 am – 10:00 am

Noon – 1:00 pm

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

11:00 pm – Midnight

Please remember … if you experience an issue with eForms, do not get frustrated and give up.  The significant amount of time you will save on the processing of your application is well worth a few technology growing pains.

Posted in ATF, BATFE, eForms, Form 1, Form 4, NFA Trusts | Comments Off on An update on eForms

What happens when the trustee that registered a machine gun in Virginia dies?

Posted on February 19, 2014 by John Pierce

Select_FireFollowing last week’s series of updates concerning whether or not a machine gun may be registered to a trust in Virginia, a client asked me a question that I did not have an immediate answer for.

“Since the Virginia State Police’s policy is to register any machine gun owned by a trust to one of the trustees, what happens when that particular trustee dies, becomes incapacitated, or becomes disqualified?”

The client’s concern is valid.  Under the terms of Virginia’s Uniform Machine Gun Act, any machine gun possessed in violation of the law is subject to seizure and confiscation.  That is a severe penalty when you are talking about an item valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.

In other words … this question needed to be answered.

The good news is that I now know who to call at the VSP when I have legal questions about their interpretation and implementation of the machine gun registration process.

For the second time in as many weeks, I called Virginia State Police Legal Services Officer Tom Lambert.

His simple, reassuring answer made so much sense that I feel the need to publicly state that I am truly proud of the Virginia State Police.

The answer?  Whenever the trustee whose name appears on an SP-115 form for a machine gun owned by a trust dies, becomes incapacitated, or becomes disqualified, one of the other trustees of the trust simply needs to send in a new SP-115 containing their information so that the VSP’s registration records may be updated.  This just needs to be done in a timely manner.

Posted in AG Opinions, Form 4, Machine Guns, NFA Trusts, Virginia Law | Comments Off on What happens when the trustee that registered a machine gun in Virginia dies?

ATF releases current processing times for applications

Posted on February 13, 2014 by John Pierce

TimeATF’s Office of Enforcement Programs and Services has posted a chart showing processing times  for certain submitted documents or forms.

The current chart contains data through December 2013 and they do not make it clear whether data from the eForms program is included at this point.

The ATF intends to update this data every 90 days.

2013_Processing_Times

Posted in ATF, BATFE, eForms, Form 1, Form 4, Form 5, Processing Times | Comments Off on ATF releases current processing times for applications

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee has killed Delegate LaRock’s CLEO sign-off bill

Posted on February 12, 2014 by John Pierce

Virginia LegislatureThis legislative session Delegate LaRock has been a steadfast friend to NFA collectors in Virginia and deserves our thanks and support.

He has introduced two bills this session that directly affect NFA applications in the Commonwealth.

The first of these, and the one I must update you on, is HB 878.

Realizing that the ATF proposed rule 41p is still lurking on the horizon to potentially subject trust applicants to the same CLEO sign-off ban suffered by individual applicants, Delegate LaRock introduced this bill to protect Virginia’s NFA collectors from being arbitrarily denied the right to even submit an NFA application.

His bill would have simply required Virginia CLEOs to sign-off on NFA applications for qualified applicants so that they are not subject to an arbitrary ban based upon where they live in the Commonwealth.  Applicants who receive CLEO sign-off would still need to go through the exhaustive, multi-month application, background check, and registration process that applies to all NFA items.

However, despite passing the republican controlled House of Delegates on a 64 to 32 vote, today the Senate Courts of Justice Committee killed the bill for the year on a 9 to 5 party-line vote.

Those who voted against the bill were Senators Marsh, McEachin, Saslaw, Howell, Lucas, Edwards, Puller, Petersen, and Wexton.

Despite giving lip service to their supposed support for the Second Amendment and for background checks, the democrats on the committee chose to subject Virginia’s NFA collectors to an arbitrary ban rather than support a system of extensive background checks and registration that has been in place of three-quarters of a century.

It seems to me that bans are what they really support.

Posted in CLEO Sign-Off, NFA Trusts, Virginia Law | Comments Off on The Senate Courts of Justice Committee has killed Delegate LaRock’s CLEO sign-off bill

The VSP has clarified the machine gun registration issue

Posted on February 11, 2014 by John Pierce

Virginia_State_PoliceLast week I wrote about a recent Attorney General’s opinion which stated that machine guns could not be registered to trusts in Virginia.

At the end of that article, I noted that I was waiting for a callback from both the Virginia State Police and the ATF regarding the next steps for those affected by the opinion.

Today, I spoke with Virginia State Police Legal Services Officer Tom Lambert and I received some very good news for those who currently own a machine gun in a trust, have an application pending to transfer a machine gun to their trust, or those who simply wish to do so in the future.

According to Mr. Lambert, there has been quite a bit of miscommunication concerning the issue and the impact of the opinion is not nearly as dire as we have been led to believe.

Let me see if I can summarize our discussion …

Apparently the State Police has, for quite some time now, required one of the trustees of a trust to register any machine guns owned by the trust in their own name (as trustee) when submitting a form SP-115.  The name of the trust would then be entered in the field for ‘BUSINESS FIRM OR GOVERNMENT ENTITY NAME’.

This allowed the State Police to register the machine gun in accordance with their interpretation (since validated) of the Uniform Machine Gun Act while still allowing trusts to ‘own’ the machine guns for ATF application purposes.

So what changed?

Last year a trustee challenged this policy, demanding to only provide the name of the trust on the Sp-115 without revealing his own name.  His argument was that the trust owned the firearm and therefore the trust was the only legal entity that should be required to submit its information on the form.

That case provided the impetus for the original question submitted to then-Attorney General Cuccinelli which gave rise to the now-infamous opinion that many of us, myself included, interpreted as a complete bar to machine gun ownership by trusts in the Commonwealth.

But that is not the how the State Police interprets the situation.

According to Mr. Lambert, the position of the State Police has not changed in the slightest. AG Cuccinelli’s opinion merely validated their current process in the face of the challenge raised by the trustee who did not wish to submit his personal information to the registry.

As far as they are concerned, trusts may still own machine guns so long as the SP-115 registration form is submitted within 24 hours of the machine gun’s acquisition and is completed by submitting the name of one of the trustees in Part A with the name of the trust included in the field reserved for ‘BUSINESS FIRM OR GOVERNMENT ENTITY NAME’.

He went on to say that they are aware of Delegate LaRock’s bill (HB 1266) to correct this issue.

In the meantime, he assured me that no one needs to withdraw a pending application to the ATF nor do they need to fear if they already have a registered machine gun owned by a trust.  Machine gun collectors may breathe a collective sigh of relief.

I have also spoken with my point of contact at the ATF and he confirmed that they have been in contact with the VSP and  are aware that there is no bar to approval of machine gun applications for trusts in the Commonwealth.

So … to summarize … while it is absolutely true that machine guns may not be currently ‘registered’ to trusts in Virginia, the VSP are more than willing to let a trust ‘own’ the machine gun so long as it is registered at the state level to a trustee of the trust.

Posted in AG Opinions, ATF, Form 4, Form 5, Machine Guns, NFA Trusts, Virginia Law | Comments Off on The VSP has clarified the machine gun registration issue