Agreed... It is penultimately silly. Currently trying to pull all of the adjudicated cases involving a 922(g) charge (prohibited person in possession) for the past few years. 922(g) does not have a separate "specifying" charge for "by way of a legal entity," so this is going to require a lot of manual work. I know that it has, in fact, happened on may occasions. And yes, it is already illegal. But the current trust/corp set up allows principals in these entities to easily skirt a background check. Additionally:


  • Although the NFA Handbook has had language added to it by ATF that directs FFL's to run a NICS check on NFA pick ups by trusts/corps
  • That handbook is NOT a regulation book
  • There is no current supporting regulation for this directive
  • The 4473 form at line 22 STILL clearly states "No NICS check was required because the transfer involved only National Firearms Act firearms(s)."
  • No official notice of this directive has been sent out to current FFL's.
  • No consistent notice of this directive has been sent out to IOI's to advise FFL's during inspections


People are up in arms screaming that the situation is "already illegal." That is absolutely true. But ATF is in the awkward position of facilitating the illegal activity because they have no way to perform even a basic check under current law. We acknowledged this situation back in the Bush era and offered that eliminating CLEO would substantially reduce the incidence of this situation by removing a majority of the need for using legal entities in first place. We then went on to suggest designating a responsible person(s) with a background check would give them the ability to validate that each transfer had at least one background check. We also advocated for using the NICS system to perform the check. The current White House went crazy with it as a political expedient. We have now engaged counsel to fight this.

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 We will not just throw our hands up and wait for the NFA to be repealed.