Eric M. Larson
	P.O. Box 5497
	Takoma Park, Maryland 20913
	(301) 270-3450
	larsone@erols.com

April 22, 2000

Assistant Director
Liaison and Public Information
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
650 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.  20226

Greetings:

This letter is to appeal ATF's denial, dated March 30, 2000, of the 
"National Firearms Act (NFA) System Users Manual September 8, 1997", said 
correspondence bearing the numbers 00-1077, 122000, under the Freedom of 
Information Act (FOIA).  I am willing to pay up to $100 for this 
information, which I request be sent to me at the above address.  I would 
note that this particular FOIA involves documents the Tresaury Department 
Inspector General requested ATF to send to me, under my FOIA to the 
latter dated August 14, 1999.

I am requesting that the foregoing manual be disclosed to me in full, for 
the following reasons:

1.  As the Treasury Department Inspector General's (IG) letter of 
December 1999 to the Congressional Leadership[FN #1] noted, the IG is 
seriously concerned about ATF's failure to correct errors the IG 
discovered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record 
(NFRTR).  More specifically, the IG stated that "ATF should complete 
actions to eliminate discrepancies" in the NFRTR database, and address 
the problem that the NFRTR does not currently reflect "all persons 
currently in possession of NFA weapons," as noted on page 4 of Enclosure 
2 of the December 1999 letter.  I have appended a copy of the pertinent 
part of Enclosure 2 for your convenience of reference.  

[FN 1]The Honorable Richard K. Armey, Majority Leader, House of 
Representatives; The Honorable Dan Burton, Chairman, Committee on 
Government Reform, House of Representatives; The Honorable Pete V. 
Domenici, Chairman, Committee on Budget, United States Senate; The 
Honorable John R. Kaisch, Chairman, Committee on Budget, House of 
Representatives; and The Honorable Fred Thompson, Chairman, Committee on 
Government Affairs, United States Senate.  As background, these Chairmen 
wrote a joint letter dated September 22, 1999, requesting the Treasury 
Department Inspector General (IG) to list all of the outstanding 
recommendations it made to agencies in reports issued during the period 
from January 1, 1998, to September 30, 1999, and to further specify what 
progress the agencies have made in implementing these recommendations.

page 2

Disclosing the manual in full could help restore confidence of the 
Congressional Leadership in ATF.

2.  As a consequence of ATF's mismanagement of the NFRTR, and the fact 
(as must be reasonably concluded by the results of previous FOIA requests 
I made) that ATF apparently had not created any instructions to assist 
its personnel in identifying and correcting errors in the NFRTR, in any 
of the previous NFA manuals ATF released to me, it is possible that the 
"National Firearms Act (NFA) System Users Manual September 6, 1997" 
contains important information that would give the Congress and the 
American people some reassurance that ATF may be trying to correct its 
practices of mismanagement which allowed errors to be created in the 
NFRTR to begin with.

3.  Opening the foregoing manual to public scrutiny would provide the 
opportunity for important public comment upon many of ATF's procedures, 
or lack thereof, for keeping track of NFA firearms.  It should be noted 
that the IG determined 100,000 or more NFA firearms are not currently 
registered to the persons who are in possession of them, which seems like 
an important public policy issue.

For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully request that the  "National 
Firearms Act (NFA) System Users Manual September 6, 1997" be disclosed to 
me in full.

	Sincerely,

	(signed---Eric M. Larson)