Department of Justice
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
Supporting Statement
# 1140-0017
Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report
Under 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44, Firearms
ATF F 5300.11
Justification
Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report (AFMER) primary purpose is to collect and disseminate data regarding the number of firearms produced by licensed manufacturers within one calendar year. The AFMER report is used to provide the public with firearms production economics on licensed manufacturer within the United States. This information is used for research purposes by the government, academic community and various industries. Under the Gun Control Act (GCA) 18 U.S.C§923(g) (5) (A), all licensed manufacturers are required to complete and return Form 5300.11 to ATF before April 1st each year.
18 U.S.C. § 923(g) (5) (A) - “Each licensee shall, when required by letter issued by the Attorney General, and until notified to the contrary in writing by the Attorney General, submit on a form specified by the Attorney General, for periods and at the times specified in such letter, all record information required to be kept by this chapter or such lesser record information as the Attorney General in such letter may specify.”
AFMER is self-reported, by licensed manufacturers, through submission of ATF Form 5300.11. After the information is collected and calculated, it is then posted annually to the ATF website to provide to the public. The AFMER information has been used in previous publications and presentations to provide firearms market trends for the U.S.
The AFMER Form 5300.11 is currently available on the ATF website. The electronic form is fillable and can be submitted electronically if the submitter prints the form out, signs it, scans it into a PDF or image file, and emails that file to [email protected]. Additionally, ATF has recently initiated electronic submission of the AFMER via eForms which allows for the fully electronic submission of the form.
ATF uses a uniform subject classification system to identify duplication and to ensure that any similar information already available cannot be used or modified for the purpose of this information collection.
The AFMER Form 5300.11, impacts all applicable businesses, despite size. All licensed manufacturers are required by law to report their information if requested by the Attorney General.
The consequences of cancelling the AFMER program would substantially impact the firearms research community. Providing this information from AFMER allows tracking of market trends and economic background of firearms manufacturing in the United States. Additionally, ATF is mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(5)(A) to collect this information, and the absence of this collection would eliminate ATF’s ability to enforce this statute.
This information collection and record keeping requirement is conducted in a manner consistent with 5 CFR 1320.6.
ATF personnel consulted with the firearms industry during the creation of this form. The 60-day and 30-day Federal Register Notices were published in the Federal Register in order to solicit comments from the general public. No comments were received.
No decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents is associated with collection of this information.
Confidentiality is not assured.
No questions of a sensitive nature are associated with this information collection.
The number of respondents for this information collection is 8500. Each respondent completes the form one time per calendar year. The total number of responses is 8500. It is estimated that it takes 20 minutes to complete the form. The total burden for this information collection is 2833 hours. The record retention requirement for this information collection is 98 years. Respondents are required to retain the form in their records for the period of time for which the respective license is active. Once the license goes inactive, the respondent is required to submit their copy of the form to ATF’s Out of Business Records Center with all of their other license documentation. Forms that are submitted are retained by the ATF for a period of five years, and are then imaged. As per record retention guidelines, the imaged copies are kept until they are no longer needed administratively (no set time), but the original hard copies are sent to the National Archives in five year blocks. Current record retention guidelines dictate that these hard copy records are permanent.
Respondents have a choice of mailing, faxing or emailing the application back to ATF. There
is no cost to the respondent for reporting this information if they use electronic means.
Estimates of annual costs to the Federal Government are as follows:
Direct Labor $7,500
Overhead $2,250
Printing $1,200
Total $10,950
The increase in respondents is due to an increase in licensed manufacturers. All Federal Firearms Licensees who hold either a Type 07 (manufacturer of firearms) or Type 10 (manufacturer of destructive devices) license must file the Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report. The increase in burden hours is due to a spike in licensed manufacturers. No change was made to question 13. Question 14 cost estimate has not changed.
The result of this collection will be posted on the ATF website.
ATF does not request approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the
information for this collection.
There are no exceptions to the certification statement.
Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods
As stated above, the universe is in fact a small well defined population as compared to the universe of ALL licensees, or for that matter the entire public. In a universe of approximately 138,500 licensees, the AFMER is only submitted by approximately 8,500 licensees (approximately 6.1%). Collection procedures are conducted through a mailing of a letter requesting the information accompanied by the form itself (it should be noted that this information collection is not voluntary, but required under 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44). Response rates are maximized by sending a second request for the information to all non-filers approximately 8 months after the first request. After this, non-filers are referred to the field for collection of the form during routine inspections at which time the accuracy of the data is verified. If, when the forms come in, there is missing data, a call is placed to the licensee to discuss the incomplete data, and guidance is offered as to how the licensee may provide the required data.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | Department of the Treasury |
| Author | ATF |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-27 |