by The American Silencer Association is a trade group representing manufacturers such as GemTech, Advanced Armament Corporation, and Silencerco. On June 20-21, six representatives of the ASA went to Martinsburg, WV and Washington, DC to meet with ATF officials as well as members of Congress. In the video below, Josh Weldon, CEO of Silencerco, narrates the trip and the result of those meetings.
One thing that stood out was the sheer amount of Form 4 applications sitting in boxes unprocessed in the NFA Branch Headquarters in Martinsburg. According to Weldon, there are currently about 30,000 applications waiting to be processed. Moreover, unlike revenues from hunting and fishing licenses which go to their respective agencies for improving wildife and fisheries, all the revenue from NFA applications goes into the general Treasury account and not to the NFA Branch. Currently, the NFA Branch has nine examiners and one borrowed examiner to work though the huge backlog of applications.
I was pleased with how the NRA-ILA was working with Weldon and ASA to get more states to approve silencers as well as how they helped introduce them around Capitol Hill.