A person’s Denied Firearm Applicant (DFA) entry can be removed from the Person of Interest File in Washington Crime Information Center (WACIC) in two ways: by winning an appeal or by notifying the Washington State Patrol (WSP) that they have appealed their denial.

If a denied person has appealed and is subsequently approved by the FBI or by the local agency that originally denied them, they must return to the Federal Firearms Licensor (FFL) that originally denied them and show the appropriate documentation from the result of their winning appeal. The FFL will notify Washington Association of Sheriff’s & Police Chiefs (WASPC), which will notify the WSP. The ACCESS Section of the WSP will then remove the person’s DFA from the Person of Interest File in WACIC.

If a person has appealed their denial and are still in appeal status, they can notify WSP by sending in the appropriate documentation. Once received, the WSP will remove the person’s DFA entry from the Person of Interest File in WACIC. However, the WSP is required to check back in a year to determine if the person is still in an appeal status, has won their appeal or has lost their appeal. If after a year they are denied or still in appeal status, WSP enters them back into the system until notified otherwise.

For more information, refer to: RCW 9.41.114; RCW 43.43.823

No, Denied Firearm Applicant (DFA) entries are for information only; you cannot deny a person based only on the receipt of a DFA. These entries provide information on a person who was, at one point in time, denied a firearm. You can, however, contact ACCESS to find out if the denying agency information is available. If so, you can contact that agency to find out why they denied the person at that time.

You should not get an OTS without a protection order. If you do, please contact the court and ask for a copy of the original order. There is nothing on either the civil or criminal OTS forms, or in RCW 9.41.800 and RCW 9.41.801, that requires you to enter an OTS into the NICS Indices or any other database. Your agency can choose to enter these into the NICS Indices, but you will need to include the OTS expiration date. Refer to the Brady and PCO/07 Slides Handout

A Federal Firearms Licensor (FFL) is required to have an NICs Transaction Number (NTN) for each Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) form 4473 that they receive. The ATF Form 4473 can have multiple firearms listed for a single subject. However, the FTA that the FFL is required to send to the local law enforcement agency and the Department of Licensing (DOL), has room for just one firearm. As a result, local law enforcement may receive multiple FTAs from an FFL for the same person.

Ultimately, it is up to your agency how you choose to process the forms.

Example: Three FTA forms are received but each is for the same person with the same date of birth.

  • You may run a NICS check for each FTA received, for a total of three different NTNs. Although the checks are all for the same person, you would not be penalized in an audit for doing this as there are three different firearms being processed. If the person filled out three different ATF Forms 4473, the FFL may actually request three different NTNs.
  • Or, if you have contacted the FFL and are confident that the three firearms are for the same subject, you can process all three FTAs with just one NICS check (and one NTN).