Ballistics Magazine By Mike Holmes 10/1/2018
For those interested in some quiet, there are ways to acquire a firearm suppressor without dealing with the complete headache the process usually creates.
Since the passing of the National Firearms Act (NFA) back in the days of Eliot Ness and the big-time gangsters, certain firearms have been “regulated.†That is, they can be legally owned and possessed under certain conditions. If a normal citizen wants a fully automatic weapon, a short-barreled rifle or shotgun, or a firearm suppressor, it has to be registered as a Class 3 firearm.
The government approval process normally includes the prospective owner submitting fingerprints, photographs and having the blessing of the top law enforcement officer in their immediate area, plus passing an FBI background check, paying a $200 stamp tax and waiting up to a year or more after paying for the item to have the purchase sanctioned. This is the case with suppressors, even though they aren’t actually firearms.
Trust YourselfTheoretically, these restrictions were needed to keep “bad guys†from using suppressors to stealthily commit crimes, including murders and assassinations. A bill currently working its way through Congress—the Hearing Protection Act (HPA)—would remove suppressors from the NFA restricted list. But while we wait to hear more progress on that, there have been some recent improvements in the suppressor-buying process that reduce or even eliminate some of the bull involved.
The alternative to buying a suppressor as an individual is to keep your suppressor(s) in an NFA Gun Trust. Doing this eliminates the fingerprint, photograph and background check requirements, as the trust that owns the suppressor is a legal entity, not an actual human. It also provides a means to allow selected persons named as officers of the trust to use the firearm suppressor without the owner of the trust being present, and to name a beneficiary to inherit the trust—and the suppressor(s) owned within it.
A suppressor owned by an individual can create special problems for inheritance, as it must be transferred to its new owner as if it were a purchase, with all those pesky restrictions. In some cases, if these problems were not anticipated, the suppressor might be confiscated by the BATFE and possibly destroyed. A proper trust will contain provisions for inheritance by someone in the trust, safeguarding the suppressor. Even with an NFA Trust, however, a lot of notarized paperwork is involved, the $200 tax stamp is still required. Also, the approval time is still long and tedious. A new “wrinkle†in firearms trusts developed by the Silencer Shop in Austin, Texas, promises to further ease the pain as we wait for passage of the HPA.
Single-Shot SaviorIt seems that while the BATFE ultimately controls the laws governing suppressors, that agency has no jurisdiction over trust law.
The new “Single Shot Trust†is a legal instrument that basically owns only one NFA item. It can be modified to cover more than one suppressor for those who are sure they will need that capacity. However, since the basic trust costs only $25 to set up, having a different one for each of multiple suppressors is not going to be a huge expense.
Often, if the suppressor being covered is sold by the Silencer Shop, the cost of the trust will be included in the purchase price. Fingerprints and photos are still required of the trust owner, but not of other officers of the trust, who were required to have these plus the background check by recent changes to the “normal†trust requirements.
More:
https://www.ballisticmag.com/2018/10/01/purchase-firearm-suppressor-bafte/
