Trust Changes Ahead...

[jason8844]

Until the NFA is eliminated (again, something that we DO support), there are going to be road blocks on the path to NFA ownership. We will try to minimize and reduce the impact of those road blocks as long as they exist. We will not just throw our hands up and wait for the NFA to be repealed.

I appreciate your optimism and wish I could share it. I am only 33 and would love to live to see the day when the NFA is eliminated or gutted, but as Reagan once said..."No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"

With the momentum of the pro-gun movement right now (i.e. Recalls in Colorado, repeal of the Chicago gun registry, the Heller case, McDonald case, many states allowing hunting with silencers etc...), now is the time to chip away at the NFA. The first thing that needs to go is Silencers and SBRs. Machine guns will always be a hard sell and an over tuning of the Hughes Amendment would be near impossible without a Supreme Court ruling. However with negligible crime rates with silencers, showing the safety benefits of them, dispelling the myths and showing that even a few European nations sell them over the counter, may turn the tide to get them taken off the NFA list. SBRs are only there because the original draft of the NFA included handguns and they did not want people chopping down rifles into pistols. The handgun portion was removed before final passage, but the SBR stayed in for whatever reason. All we would need is one victory (even a small one) to start the ball rolling. SBSs on the other hand would be a harder sell than SBRs due to the "sawed-off" pejorative and public perception.

However, just like the original intent of the NFA was to reduce the number of these weapons with a tax, now they are deliberately doing it with unreasonable wait times. It only takes the FBI 30 days to fully vet a potential new recruit to get security clearances. In many states you can register to vote the same day as an election. You can get food stamps within a week of filing for them. There is no reason the NFA process should take so long. Most of my friends who would love to get into NFA stuff just do not want to deal with the wait. That alone is keeping NFA paperwork down to a large degree.

[philcam]

Actually, you know nothing of the sort, save for what you have read on the Internet (so it must be true, right?). I challenge you to provide factual evidence that John is "in bed with them working as a confidential informant." The text of the petition is ALREADY released in ATF's publication that everyone is citing, but does not appear to be reading. Just like they miss the details about prohibited persons receiving weapons without background checks via legal entities. Here, I'll save you some time on that one:

In Texas, ATF became aware of a situation in which the member of an LLC was illegal alien, living in the United States under an assumed name, and had a felony warrant outstanding. At that time, the LLC had 19 firearms registered to it and ATF lacked the necessary information to conduct any background checks to determine whether the member was a prohibited person. In Tennessee, as a result of information provided by a Federal Firearms Licensee, ATF became aware of applications submitted to transfer two NFA firearms to a trust in which one of the trustees was a convicted felon.

Jeff,

You claim TWO people had access to NFA items thru a trust. TWO out of over 39,000 applicants this year alone. Do you propose fingerprints and photos for a simple 4473 purchase also? Hundreds of people lie on the 4473 every year. Unfortunately they are seldom prosecuted.

I have read the ATF's 16 page proposal published in the Federal Register on September 9, 2013. It DOES NOT CONTAIN the entire NFATCA petition. Section II does reference the NFATCA's proposal.

The ATF claims, among other things, that the NFATCA submitted it's proposal on December 3, 2009. Earlier you claimed the NFATCA had been working with the ATF for "over nine years." Which one is it and why would you ever think submitting ANY proposal during this administration would be beneficial to law abiding gun owners?

The ATF's proposal also stated the NFATCA is concerned that "the photograph, fingerprint card, and chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) certificate requirements of §§ 479.63 and 479.85 do not apply if the applicant or transferee is a partnership, company, association, trust, or corporation. As such, persons who possess, directly or indirectly, the power or authority to receive, possess, ship, transport, deliver, transfer or otherwise dispose of a firearm for, or on behalf of the entity are not subject to these requirements, and ATF does not conduct a background check of those individuals."

Furthermore, "The NFATCA expressed concern that persons who are prohibited by law from possessing or receiving firearms may acquire NFA firearms through the establishment of a legal entity such as a corporation, trust, or partnership. It contends that the number of applications to acquire NFA firearms via a corporation, partnership, trust, or other legal entity has increased significantly over the years."

Additionally, The ATF claims the NFATCA "expressed concern that an NFA firearm could be acquired by a prohibited person and used in a violent crime. Therefore, for applications for a corporation, trust, partnership, or other legal entity to make or receive an NFA firearm, the petitioner has requested amendments to §§ 479.63 and 479.85 to require photographs and fingerprint cards for persons who are responsible for directing the management and policies of the entity, so that a background check of the individual may be conducted."

Finally the ATF quotes the NFATCA petition saying the NFATCA "requests that the law enforcement certificate requirement be eliminated and that ATF ‘‘adopt a CLEO [chief law enforcement officer] process that will include a full NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check for principal officers of a trust or corporation receiving such firearms for the trust or corporation.’’ The petitioner articulates several reasons in support of its request. For example, it states that the lack of cooperation on the part of many CLEOs in recent years has forced larger numbers of individuals to acquire NFA firearms via a trust or corporate entity, so as to avoid the need for a law enforcement certificate. The petitioner also asserts that ATF no longer accepts the CLEO certificate as prima facie verification of compliance with state and local law, and that the certificate therefore does not alleviate the burden on ATF to verify that receipt or possession of a NFA firearm would not place the applicant or transferee in violation of state or local law. Although ATF agrees in principle with some of petitioner’s assertions (for example, with the fact that ATF independently verifies whether receipt or possession of a NFA firearm would place the applicant or transferee in violation of state or local law), ATF does not propose to eliminate the CLEO certificate requirement at this time. Rather, ATF proposes extending the CLEO certificate requirement to responsible persons of a legal entity. ATF also proposes amending the language of the certificate to omit the requirement that the certifying official state that he has no information that the applicant or transferee will use the firearm for other than lawful purposes."

So, again, who is telling the truth here, Jeff? Did the NFATCA basically throw trust holders under the bus by saying "bad guys are getting NFA guns with trusts. You should do backgrounds on the guys with trusts, but do away with the CLEO?"

OR, is the ATF lying and if it is, when will the NFATCA publish an unedited version of it's petition or are we going to have to FOIA the ATF for a copy of the NFATCA's petition? (If NFATCA has published it, please accept my apologies because I haven't found it.)

You see, it certainly looks to us like the NFATCA went to dance with the devil and lost, big time. It looks like the NFATCA said, "lets compromise, add backgrounds to trusts but do away with the CLEO for individuals" The only thing is, the NFATCA failed to realize this administration does not compromise with lawful gun owners. They will take and take and take and take.

[ExecDirector]

No Phil...
ATF offered the two examples. And those two examples were not just involving trusts. We are aware of those and many others. But as I have mentioned previously in this thread, 922(g) does not have a separate break out for prohibited person in possession by way of legal entity, so we are having to manually comb through each and every filed charge that has been adjudicated. And ATF will not make ANY comment on cases currently being prosecuted. It's going to take some time to satisfy your curiosity. Why don't you try reading the entire background on the ATF's website??? You know, the original publication that started this mess? The one that is 62 pages long?

NFATCA has been working on eliminating the CLEO signature requirement for over nine years. I stand by that statement. The petition absolutely was filed 12/3/2009. A petition does not represent the first effort in attempting to eliminate the CLEO signature requirement. Our contention has always been that the CLEO signature is antiquated, ineffective and also serves as de facto gun control in some jurisdictions. We had also been made aware of the fact that there absolutely were prohibited persons obtaining weapons (not just machine guns) via legal entities, that these prohibited persons were avoiding background checks of any type in so doing and that because of this ATF was absolutely set on freezing legal entity access to weapons until they could sort out a way to prevent this specific activity.

Yes, we know that prohibited person in possession is already illegal. But what has been described is ATF giving tacit permission for the maneuver. That was not going to stand. ATF was headed straight for freezing the process until they could heavily restrict or eliminate it. We sought to keep legal entity access with a minimal amount of background checks to appease ATF's concern. We also sought to eliminate the CLEO signature requirement which would have the effect of actually reducing the number of trusts needed in the cases of those seeking to deal with an intractable CLEO. We were set to achieve those goals right up and until several very public tragedies emboldened the White House to derail things for political expediency.

To repeat: until the NFA is eliminated (again, something that we DO support), there are going to be road blocks on the path to NFA ownership. Those road blocks include some combination of NICS, fingerprints, photographs and more thorough background checks. We will try to minimize and reduce the impact of those road blocks as long as they exist. We will not just throw our hands up and wait for the NFA to be repealed.

And for the record, the only posts that have been eliminated on social media or this forum have been exactly two expletive filled rants. We made it clear that we would not censor comments, pro or con, as long as they remained civil.

[RenegadeConservative]

We had also been made aware of the fact that there absolutely were prohibited persons obtaining weapons (not just machine guns) via legal entities, that these prohibited persons were avoiding background checks of any type in so doing and that because of this ATF was absolutely set on freezing legal entity access to weapons until they could sort out a way to prevent this specific activity.

Yes, we know that prohibited person in possession is already illegal. But what has been described is ATF giving tacit permission for the maneuver. That was not going to stand. ATF was headed straight for freezing the process until they could heavily restrict or eliminate it. We sought to keep legal entity access with a minimal amount of background checks to appease ATF's concern. We also sought to eliminate the CLEO signature requirement which would have the effect of actually reducing the number of trusts needed in the cases of those seeking to deal with an intractable CLEO. We were set to achieve those goals right up and until several very public tragedies emboldened the White House to derail things for political expediency.

18 USC § 921 - Definitions
(a) As used in this chapter—
(1) The term “person” and the term “whoever” include any individual, corporation, company, association, firm, partnership, society, or joint stock company.

It sounds to me like BATFE is trying to do whatever the hell they want, regardless of its legality.

Congress needs to come in and slap these guys down.

[ExecDirector]

Renegade... Agreed! Congress does need to get involved. But will they? Look at how long it took them just to approve a boss for the bureau. And while your citation of the definition of person is 100% correct, a process or implementing regulation can absolutely be frozen if a deficiency is discovered until such deficiency is remedied. This is exactly where ATF's Counsel's Office was headed because ATF was facilitating prohibited persons in possession. Again, it was already a crime for a prohibited person to be in possession... ATF was facilitating the process via legal entities.

Folks are up in arms regarding the extent of the problem. I have tried to explain the difficulties inherent in breaking out natural persons from legal entities under the 922(g) umbrella charge. I can assure you that there are a significant number of cases beyond the few that have already been referenced. But in order to provide that "proof" a lot of manual work has to be done.

Under the Chevron Doctrine, agencies and bureaus have extremely wide latitude in interpreting the regulations used to implement legislation. SCOTUS has sided with the government almost universally in matters such as this because of Chevron. It doesn't make the actions any more palatable.

We should not even be having to fight *any* battle over NFA. But until it goes away, if it goes away, we are going to have to figure out ways to minimize the impact of ATF's regulatory efforts. We would be excoriated for doing nothing. Since we are getting excoriated anyway, we will continue to fight.

[RenegadeConservative]

Renegade... Agreed! Congress does need to get involved. But will they? Look at how long it took them just to approve a boss for the bureau. And while your citation of the definition of person is 100% correct, a process or implementing regulation can absolutely be frozen if a deficiency is discovered until such deficiency is remedied. This is exactly where ATF's Counsel's Office was headed because ATF was facilitating prohibited persons in possession. Again, it was already a crime for a prohibited person to be in possession... ATF was facilitating the process via legal entities.

Folks are up in arms regarding the extent of the problem. I have tried to explain the difficulties inherent in breaking out natural persons from legal entities under the 922(g) umbrella charge. I can assure you that there are a significant number of cases beyond the few that have already been referenced. But in order to provide that "proof" a lot of manual work has to be done.

Under the Chevron Doctrine, agencies and bureaus have extremely wide latitude in interpreting the regulations used to implement legislation. SCOTUS has sided with the government almost universally in matters such as this because of Chevron. It doesn't make the actions any more palatable.

We should not even be having to fight *any* battle over NFA. But until it goes away, if it goes away, we are going to have to figure out ways to minimize the impact of ATF's regulatory efforts. We would be excoriated for doing nothing. Since we are getting excoriated anyway, we will continue to fight.

I was afraid of that.

Seems like the government can get away with almost anything these days: tax scandals, security scandals, gun running operations, etc.

The thing that gets me the most is that I've got a STEN Mk. II that has been in limbo since all this garbage started. I'm hoping to get it approved before I have to walk down to my local Chief of Police and beg for his blessing.

[ExecDirector]

I am cautiously optimistic that our retained counsel and a grass roots effort will head this off at the pass. And I am not certain how they would pull off a retroactive process. This is far from the law of the land.

[RenegadeConservative]

I just finished reading John Brown's report on Small Arms of the World. Good writeup.

[jason8844]

I am cautiously optimistic that our retained counsel and a grass roots effort will head this off at the pass. And I am not certain how they would pull off a retroactive process. This is far from the law of the land.

I unfortunately do not share in your optimism. I believe this nation has passed the point of no return. With so many low information voters wanting more and more stuff for free and a political party building a base on promising more and more to those people, the road to decline and decay are inevitable. I believe freedom is lost for 4 or 5 generations until the next enlightenment or enough people clamor for freedom and stand up and fight for it.

With the Senate in full Democrat control, even if the House passed a bill to reverse this executive action, it will not pass the full Congress. Also, with the NFA community being so small compared to the overwhelming gun owning community, the risk/reward is not worth it for many politicians to step up to the plate. They know the media will throw out the pejoratives about "sawed-off" this and "assault" weapon that. The Hollywood myths about silencers will also be beamed into every home in this nation.

Sorry for being a Debbie-Downer, but I am not optimistic about much with our nation's future.

[philcam]

Jeff,

The NFATCA claims "ATF was headed straight for freezing the process." So you broker a shady backroom deal to add background check, fingerprints and now CLEO to the trust.

Do you realize how much cannon fodder you've provided the ATF? ANY Congressman who questions this proposed rule change, will be give the excuse "their own association asked for this! We are only giving them what they asked for."

The NFATCA continually refuses to publish it's own unedited petition to the ATF. Why? If the NFATCA was making such strides in working with the ATF, what is to be ashamed of? How can anyone write well thought arguments against these proposed changes if they don't have the "rule book" the NFATCA asked for?

Sleep well, my friend. The NFATCA and it's games will likely cost hundreds of jobs. Many manufactures and dealers will lose a significant portion of their businesses if the CLEO signoff becomes a requirement.

I am dead serious by saying this. The best thing the NFATCA could do is disband itself and donate 100% of any monies left to the NRA and let them try and clean up your mess.