Office of Inspector General Review of ATF's Firearm Registration Procedures A-CH-98-001 Meeting Participants: ATF, Washington, D.C. [deleted}, Chief, Firearms and Explosives Division [deleted] Treasury OIG, Carol Burgan, Auditor [deleted] Gary Wilk, Auditor Date: January 21, 1998 Time: 3:00PM Location: ATF Headquarters 650 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. 5th Floor Conference Room (Suite 5100) Washington, D.C. Subject: Sampling errors, update on reconciliation -- [deleted] was asked what sample error rate would be acceptable to ATF to be comfortable with the NFA records (based on categories we would be testing). In addition, [deleted] was asked for [deleted] input on what [deleted] thought was a critical (material) error. [deleted] indicated the following: 1. 95% confidence level with an error rate of3D/- 2 percent. = [deleted] mentioned this is what ATF uses internally when sampling. 2. Critical errors would include: serial number of the weapon, name of weapon owner, address of owner, date of application (if applicable), date of birth, and weapon description. Address of owner is important however, [sic] owners do not have to report intrastate moves (only interstate). 3. Noncritical errors would include data entry (keypunch errors--wrong form number input). -- [deleted] was asked about the age of the database and possible solutions. [deleted] indicatd that there is nothing to prevent ATF from sending out confirmations to owners. The only problem Prepared by: C. Burgan Date: 1/26/98 Reviewed by: RKB Date: 2/3/98 Page 1 of 2 File: GAOmeet F-22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Office of Inspector General Review of ATF's Firearm Registration Procedures A-CH-98-001 Meeting [deleted] saw was that it may be politically sensitive. Gun owners woudl be complaining to their Congressional Representatives. ATF would address a recommendation on the age of the database. -- [deleted] was asked if there were problems getting about 2.5 million M-14 and M-16 weapons that are in possession of state agencies registered. Initially, the Dept. of Defense would normally set up a procedure for the state agencies in order to get them to register these weapons. Somehow, this did not go forward. [deleted] indicated ATF officials are meeting with Dept. of Defense on February 3, 1998, to discuss this situation to get a procedure in place. [deleted] did not feel that this area would be a problem to fix. The Dept. of Defense has always been cooperative in these areas when procedures need to be set up. -- [deleted] expressed [deleted] concern with their EDP group inability to provide timely data to the OIG. [deleted] requested EDP give [deleted] twice daily updates on the projects for the NFA branch reconciliation. [deleted] also spoke to the Assistant Director of that group and informed [deleted] of the problems the NFA branch faces unless the database is reconciled satisfactorily. Conclusion: -- [deleted] would be comfortable with a 95% confidence leve +/- 2% error rate ina sample of the NFA database. [deleted] defined critical errors to be: 1) serial number of weapon, 2) name of owner, 3) address of owner, 4) dates of application (if needed for Form 4467), 5) date of birth, and 6) weapon description. Prepared by: C. Burgan Date: 1/26/98 Reviewed by: RKB Date: 2/3/98 Page 2 of 2 File: GAOmeet