Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Simplifying National Firearms Act Transfers

Chuck Michel, a prominent firearms attorney in California, points me to an article from the NFA Trade & Collectors Association indicating that BATF and DOJ are preparing a significant simplification of the procedure for transfers of NFA Form 1 and Form 4 weapons.

Right now, you need to the signature of the Chief Law Enforcement Officer (CLEO) for your location on these forms before BATF will transfer these machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers, and other oddities.  Even when there is no legal obstacle, CLEOs in some states are notoriously reluctant to do this, and some attorneys make a living just getting courts to issue writs of mandamus directing the CLEO to sign the form.  This will certainly greatly simplify the process of transferring these weapons for those of you who live in states that do not have particularly restrictive state regulations.

If this happens, I expect that many gun control advocates will suffer apoplectic fits.

3 comments:

  1. I almost suspect they'll be silent about it.

    Two reasons: First, most of them seem to be utterly ignorant about NFA restrictions in practice.

    Second, to have a fit about it in public, they'd have to point out that NFA weapons have the regulation they already have. That's been anathema for people who make a living pretending that "anyone can go buy a machinegun at a gun show" or the like.

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  2. Great news!
    But, couldn't get the link to work...

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  3. Opened for me in two different places. Make sure that you have the current Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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