FBI Refusing Appeals on NFA Denials

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “The FBI has taken the position that it will not allow you to appeal your FBI background check and denial for an NFA [National Firearms Act] Transaction,” attorney Stephen Stamboulieh announced Monday. “Yes, the FBI conducts the background check, denies you, and provides the NTN [NICS Transaction Number] for your denial, but… no appeal for you!”

“[T]he Appeal Services Team (AST) of the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division’s NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] Section does not process appeal requests for the NFA background checks,” appellant Kevin Francisco Borquez was told in an unsigned letter from the FBI dated June 12. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

“A NICS check is not required on the transfer of NFA items,” Historic Arms, LLC President Len Savage advised (See Section B, item 20 on page 2 of ATF Form 4473 and corresponding instructions on page 6).  “However, the FBI does receive fingerprints and does a more extensive background check that includes use of the NICS prior to ATF NFA branch even beginning the transfer process.”

In the case of NICS appeals, a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Stamboulieh produced the admission that the FBI “stopped processing front-end [appeals] mail on 11/25/2015.”

In Borquez’s NFA case, he maintains he has wrongly been denied a fundamental right by gatekeepers that got it wrong. And based on their response, FBI bureaucrats apologized but won’t do anything about it except return materials he submitted in his inquiry.

Does failure to tell an inquiring citizen who does process such appeal requests mean no one does?

“I didn’t believe it until I saw the document. I’m not sure how this is legal or proper, but we are looking into it,” Stamboulieh responded. “So basically, the FBI is denying you based on its database, and then wholesale refuses to allow you to appeal it. Smells like a due process violation.”

About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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