5 ms·

The threat is certainly more direct and concrete. A lot of people don't know that the recent assault weapons ban that was proposed would make millions of people

The threat is certainly more direct and concrete. A lot of people don't know that the recent assault weapons ban that was proposed would make millions of people felons and punishable by 10 years in prison if they did not register their rifles under the NFA (which is currently used for machine gun collectors - it's a painful bureaucratic process that takes months, but allows the ownership of machine guns, suppressors, and other items deemed dangerous by the government). Practically, NFA registration is something that is not accessible to many citizens due to local roadblocks (requirements for local law enforcement to sign off who have no obligation to do so). It also takes well over 6 months with the relatively rare items it covers now. Adding millions of records to that would have overwhelmed the ATF, and instantly turned millions of people into felons for doing absolutely nothing. That will get your attention.

hga 13y ago
At the state level we have many examples of this actually happening. California passed an "assault weapons" ban 1989, and in an act of amazing bureaucratic/political gymnastics first said a particular obsolete WWII rifle design, the SKS which has an integral 10 round magazine and a medium power round, was OK but you've got to register it, then reversed and decided they were illegal, and for anyone who registered one.... Keeping with the old gun designs issue, let's say you live in NY state and own a "Keep Off My Lawn" WWII era M1 Garand rifle, which has an integral magazine and is fed with an 8 round "en-bloc" clip. Well, now, outside of certain types of competitions you can no longer use those clips, you'd have to carefully bend sheet metal to reduce them to 7 rounds and likely suffer reliability problems. I carry a pre-WWI M1911 design handgun, with modern 8 round magazines; if I lived in NY state, I'd be a felon if I missed unloading one of them by one round. There are many many other examples of these state and local "flypaper" laws and their enforcement.
rdl 13y ago
As an aside, gun trusts are a decent way around the CLEO signature requirement for NFA items, at least in states which don't ban them outright (sigh, California). (acutely noticed since I've seen <$200 .22lr suppressors on the market recently. Almost like cheap airline tickets, where the tax > the fare.)
- hga 13y ago
  I gather that in a lot of states they haven't been put to the legal test. Not a good bet where judiciaries lean more left than the state itself, e.g. any that picks judges with the Missouri Plan, like my home state of Missouri where our Castle Doctrine has been judicially nullified. Especially since you won't find many political profiles in courage supporting ownership of NFA items.
  - damoncali 13y ago
    I don't know. It's a pretty standard thing to do these days. Surely you have to make sure you cross all the t's and dot all the i's. But it's not like the practice doesn't have a long history. Seems there are more pitfalls for owning personally.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Yeah. My long-term plan involves either running as CLEO (in a low-population county in WA), and/or becoming a manufacturing FFL (looking at how to make .22lr mini-mag clones at <$0.05 all day, in the $10-20mm+/yr scale -- it's sadly a bit of a black art)
  - shpxnvz 13y ago
    In the cases I've seen state first hand, state law regarding NFA items usually just provides a blanket exemption for legal ownership so long as the item was procured in compliance with NFA procedures. In those states, so long as the NFA branch issues the stamp and you are (federally) legally allowed to possess the item under the NFA, it doesn't matter whether you or a trust owns it. Of course, the trust must be valid under the trust law of the state you reside in or else it cannot legally own the items, but competent trust attorneys are not too hard to find.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Ironic that both of them (I believe) involved current or former law enforcement officers, too.

hga 13y ago

At the state level we have many examples of this actually happening. California passed an "assault weapons" ban 1989, and in an act of amazing bureaucratic/political gymnastics first said a particular obsolete WWII rifle design, the SKS which has an integral 10 round magazine and a medium power round, was OK but you've got to register it, then reversed and decided they were illegal, and for anyone who registered one.... Keeping with the old gun designs issue, let's say you live in NY state and own a "Keep Off My Lawn" WWII era M1 Garand rifle, which has an integral magazine and is fed with an 8 round "en-bloc" clip. Well, now, outside of certain types of competitions you can no longer use those clips, you'd have to carefully bend sheet metal to reduce them to 7 rounds and likely suffer reliability problems. I carry a pre-WWI M1911 design handgun, with modern 8 round magazines; if I lived in NY state, I'd be a felon if I missed unloading one of them by one round. There are many many other examples of these state and local "flypaper" laws and their enforcement.

rdl 13y ago

As an aside, gun trusts are a decent way around the CLEO signature requirement for NFA items, at least in states which don't ban them outright (sigh, California). (acutely noticed since I've seen <$200 .22lr suppressors on the market recently. Almost like cheap airline tickets, where the tax > the fare.)

hga 13y ago
I gather that in a lot of states they haven't been put to the legal test. Not a good bet where judiciaries lean more left than the state itself, e.g. any that picks judges with the Missouri Plan, like my home state of Missouri where our Castle Doctrine has been judicially nullified. Especially since you won't find many political profiles in courage supporting ownership of NFA items.
- damoncali 13y ago
  I don't know. It's a pretty standard thing to do these days. Surely you have to make sure you cross all the t's and dot all the i's. But it's not like the practice doesn't have a long history. Seems there are more pitfalls for owning personally.
- rdl 13y ago
  Yeah. My long-term plan involves either running as CLEO (in a low-population county in WA), and/or becoming a manufacturing FFL (looking at how to make .22lr mini-mag clones at <$0.05 all day, in the $10-20mm+/yr scale -- it's sadly a bit of a black art)
- shpxnvz 13y ago
  In the cases I've seen state first hand, state law regarding NFA items usually just provides a blanket exemption for legal ownership so long as the item was procured in compliance with NFA procedures. In those states, so long as the NFA branch issues the stamp and you are (federally) legally allowed to possess the item under the NFA, it doesn't matter whether you or a trust owns it. Of course, the trust must be valid under the trust law of the state you reside in or else it cannot legally own the items, but competent trust attorneys are not too hard to find.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Ironic that both of them (I believe) involved current or former law enforcement officers, too.