Questions and Answers

Any person who sells, transfers, or ships for profit cigarettes or smokeless tobacco in interstate commerce, whereby such cigarettes or smokeless tobacco are shipped into a State, locality, or Indian country of an Indian tribe taxing the sale or use of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco or who advertises or offers cigarettes or smokeless tobacco for such sale, transfer, or shipment. 

Unfortunately, no. Qualification requirements must be developed based on the position, series and grade announced. Agencies must develop these requirements before the announcement opens, and agencies are prohibited from requiring more than what is necessary to do the job from applicants. Agencies are also not allowed to compare applicants against one another; they are only allowed to compare applicants against the requirements.

In simple terms, qualified veterans are essentially referred ahead of non-veterans or non-preference eligibles. Selecting officials may not bypass qualified veterans over non-veterans, unless the referred veteran(s) are selected, withdraw from competition, or in rare cases a pass over is granted.

“Category Rating” is used for positions advertised under Delegated Examining procedures (open to all U.S. citizens to apply). Under Category Rating, applicants are placed into groups (Best Qualified, Well Qualified and Qualified) based on the contents of their application. Veterans with a disability of 10 percent or more are placed at the top of the highest category on the referral list (except for scientific or professional positions at the GS-9 level or higher) if they meet minimum qualifications. Veterans’ preference does not apply to positions that are covered by a Direct Hire Authority (DHA). If a position is covered by a DHA, it will be stated in the announcement.

ATF receives a lot of highly qualified veteran applicants for most all 1800, clerical and administrative positions. It can be very challenging to get referred to the hiring manager(s), if you are a non-veteran applying to those positions at ATF that are open to the public, but we encourage you to continue to apply.

No. Only veterans discharged or released from active duty in the armed forces under honorable conditions are eligible for veterans’ preference. For more information about veterans’ preference, visit Feds Hire Vets.

The prohibition against unlicensed dealing is a statutory criminal prohibition. ATF’s enforcement authority against unlicensed dealing comes from the law (the Gun Control Act as amended by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act), not from the 2024 rule. The repeal of the rule should have no effect on any ATF trafficking prosecutions. It remains unlawful for a person to “deal” in firearms without a federal firearms license, that is, to intend a pattern of repeated buying and selling motivated predominantly by profit. ATF continues its efforts to identify those operating outside of the law and, working with our partners in the U.S. Attorney’s offices, to bring these individuals to justice.

No. the repeal of the regulation has no effect on the scope of the law. Repealing the regulation signals that ATF will abide by the laws enacted by Congress. Our commitment to enforce the law remains intact. 

Your resume must thoroughly describe how your skills and experiences align with the criteria defined in the qualifications section of the job announcement and support your responses to the assessment questionnaire. Federal Human Resources professionals operate under various federal employment laws, rules and regulations. We are prohibited from drawing conclusions or making assumptions regarding your experience or qualifications. It is up to you to describe your past work experience in detail by providing examples related to those listed in the requirements section of the job announcement.

Your experience, including relevant volunteer, paid or unpaid work and roles in community organizations, should address all qualifications in the vacancy announcement. Be specific to ensure the hiring agency can determine the experience they are seeking. If the qualifications section says you need experience developing quality assurance standard operating procedures and division policies, you need to provide evidence of this qualifying experience in your resume.

Federal Human Resources professionals operate under various federal employment laws, rules and regulations. We are prohibited from drawing conclusions or making assumptions regarding your experience or qualifications. It is up to you to describe your past work experience in detail by providing examples related to those listed in the requirements section of the job announcement.

Note: Academic curriculum vitae typically do not include enough information for a Human Resources professional to determine if you meet minimum eligibility requirements. We cannot assume you have the necessary experience required for a position regardless of your employment history or academic career. If you choose to use an academic curriculum vitae, please expand upon the traditional form to include the information in the following section for each experience/position listed. To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJobs Online Resume Builder.

Yes. Please note that changes may not be made once the announcement closes.

Minimum or basic qualifications are intended to identify applicants who are likely to perform successfully on the job, and to screen out those who are unlikely to do so. They provide critical information that relates to the work of vacant positions to be filled. Hiring officials and human resources professionals use minimum qualifications in vacancy announcements to pinpoint education and/or experience related to and qualifying for vacant positions. The qualifications describe the qualifying education and/or experience required for vacant positions. This information in vacancy announcements is every applicant’s roadmap for determining whether they meet the qualifications and should apply to vacancy announcements.

Current criminal investigators may apply under an open announcement, however, applicants who submit an application under an “entry level” announcement will only be considered for a position at the GS grade 5, 7 or 9 level.

You may apply to any job; however, you may not be eligible for the job if you do not fall into one of the required categories. If you are not eligible, your application may not be considered. For example, any U.S. Citizen is eligible to apply to positions that are “Open to the Public”. Look for the "This job is open to" section in the job announcement to see who is eligible to apply.

The job announcement will list who is eligible by using one or many USAJOBS hiring paths. Visit the USAJOBS hiring paths page for more information: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/working-in-government/unique-hiring-paths/.

The following informational packet provides detailed information about the ATF special agent position to include major duties, basic qualifications, conditions of employment and specific requirements: Special Agent Informational Packet.

For this job announcement there probably were other applicants who by law must be considered before your application (e.g., certain veterans or displaced federal employees). The last time you applied for the position there may have been no other applicants who were required to be considered by law before other applicants may be considered. Veterans’ Preference is a federal law that essentially requires agencies to hire qualified veterans before qualified non-veterans. Therefore, we cannot consider non-veterans for employment, until those who are entitled to Veterans’ Preference are either hired or withdraw from consideration. You may have also not scored high enough on the assessment if category rating was used to evaluate applicants. Only applicants who are placed in the highest category can be considered for employment.

ATF is still conducting legal reviews for other, more technically challenging rules. If changes are needed following the review, a proposal will be published. As with all proposals, they will go through the full notice-and-comment process.

No. If the review determines that changes are needed, the proposal will be published.

This effort is pursuant to the President’s Executive Order directing a review of the regulations to protect Second Amendment rights. ATF has been examining all regulations to determine whether they are the best interpretation of the law reflecting the intent of the Congress and consistency with the Second Amendment and whether they impose any unnecessary burdens on public without enhancing public safety. 

The goal of the review was to execute the President’s Executive Order, which sought to ensure that every regulation ATF enforces is legally sound, operationally effective, clearly written, and fairly administered. 

No. This effort is pursuant to the President’s Executive Order 14206 directing a review of the regulations to protect Second Amendment rights. ATF has been examining all regulations, including those that are not the best interpretation of the statutes or that impose unnecessary burdens or are otherwise inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Every rule in this package was reviewed by DOJ and proposed rules will go through a full public comment period before anything is finalized.

This is not about politics; it’s about the law. These rescissions involve rules that federal courts, who operate independently of the administration, have vacated or enjoined. Other proposed rules reflect a legal and operational review that concluded the prior approaches didn't achieve their objectives. That is how regulatory governance is supposed to work.

No. While “first in, first out” is a guiding principle, NFA Division will focus its resources on processing those NFA applications that have received a “proceed” from FBI-NICS in response to the required background check. NFA applications were previously processed on a “first in, first out” basis, which resulted in delayed processing for NFA applications with a proceeded background check. For example, previously, a NFA application with a proceeded background check would not be processed until a NFA application with a delayed background check was resolved. Now, the NFA application with a proceeded background check gets priority for processing. NFA will continue to submit background checks to FBI-NICS in the order applications are received. NFA Division will then process NFA applications as it receives background check responses from FBI-NICS.

The NFA examiners are assigned specific application types. For example, certain examiners will be assigned to process individual applicants while others are assigned to process trust applicants. Further, applications that are put into problem status will be processed at the end of the week. Examples for when an application is placed into problem status include failure to submit fingerprint cards, failure to submit photographs, failure to submit a responsible person questionnaire, or to research whether the applicant may make, possess, or receive the firearm under State law.

No. None of these proposals would change who is prohibited from possessing a firearm. These are administrative and regulatory changes to processes and definitions, not changes to the underlying prohibitions that keep firearms out of dangerous hands. ATF does not believe any recently released proposed rules will jeopardize public safety.

We’d have to refer you to talk to them directly. What we can tell you is that ATF’s commitment to rooting out violent crime is stronger than ever. Our relationships with state, local, and federal law enforcement are central to our mission. Any concerns raised during the comment period, regardless of who they’re coming from, will be considered. 

Whether a specific firearm is regulated as a short-barreled rifle under the NFA depends on the statutory definition enacted by Congress, codified at 26 U.S.C. 5845, not an ATF rule. Pursuant to federal law, a firearm is a rifle if it is designed and intended to be fired from the should. The proposed rescission would remove the changes ATF made to the regulatory definitions of “rifle” in 2023 to further clarify the meaning of “design and intended to be fired from the shoulder.” The 2023 final rule has already been vacated or enjoined across multiple jurisdictions. The proposed rule does not however make a categorical legal determination about every object that a person might label a “brace.”

The question of whether a weapon that is attached with something labeled as a “brace” is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder is a factual question. ATF has to examine the individual firearm to make a classification. What ATF can and proposes to do is to remove a rule that courts found did not hold up. That is the appropriate action for a regulatory agency operating within the rule of law.