Gun Owners of America (GOA) just dropped a bombshell, meticulously dismantling the ATF’s narrative on NFA application denials with hard data that exposes bureaucratic overreach at its finest. The feds have been peddling the line that their denial rates for items like suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and other NFA goodies are minimal—hovering around a laughable 0.016%—to justify endless rule tweaks and delays that choke the Second Amendment. But GOA isn’t buying it. They’ve crunched the numbers from ATF’s own backlog reports, revealing a denial spike from just 11 in FY2020 to a whopping 1,478 in FY2023, alongside a processing paralysis where Form 1 wait times ballooned from 90 days to over 300. This isn’t incompetence; it’s a deliberate throttle on our rights, dressed up as public safety.

Dig deeper, and the implications for the 2A community are seismic. The ATF’s smoke-and-mirrors game props up their zero-tolerance empire, where a single paperwork hiccup or subjective prohibited person flag can strip law-abiding citizens of their property without due process—echoing the same playbook used to harass pistol brace owners into oblivion. GOA’s receipts force a reckoning: if denials are exploding while approvals crawl, it’s not about vetting threats; it’s about manufacturing consent for more regs, like the looming frame or receiver redefinition that could ensnare everyday AR builds. This exposé arms us with ammo for lawsuits, congressional grillings, and the 2024 midterms—proving once again that sunlight is the best disinfectant against administrative tyrants.

For gun owners, the takeaway is crystal clear: vigilance isn’t optional. Support orgs like GOA that fight with facts, not platitudes, and keep the pressure on to #AbolishTheATF or at least neuter their NFA stranglehold. If they lie about the basics, imagine what else they’re hiding—time to bring more receipts and reclaim our birthright.