Because There's No 900 lb. Gorilla For NFA

I've noticed that the anti-gun forces have been doing petty pecking at NFA regulations.

They've been successful and they've got a fine representative in the National Firearms Act Traders & Collectors Association or NFATCA.

NFATCA sees themselves as making the noble stand and selflessly sacrificing to make the NFA world less bad than it could be.

The problem with their meddling, with the best of intentions, is all they're really doing to a lot of people is paving the road to Hell.

They flat accused anyone with an NFA trust of being a felon trying to skirt the possession laws while also acknowledging that many people with an NFA trust would have gone the individual route if their chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) would sign Form 1 or Form 4's.

I applauded the attempt to eliminate the CLEO signature from individual transfers.

It was the attack on NFA trusts that pissed me off.  I was not asked by the NFATCA why I got a trust instead of doing individual ownership.

With a trust The Lovely Harvey can also have access to the NFA items while I am away.  With a trust, we can take care of the legal necessities of The Boy for the sad day when we're both dead and gone.  Our NFA trust, is also a traditional trust to make sure that The Boy, who cannot govern his own affairs, never ends up owning any of the guns.  He's literally incompetent.  The trust liquidates the gun collection and sets up accounts to help support him.

That I could file Form 1's and not invite the sheriff into my life by begging permission to exercise a right was just a bonus.  Skipping the cost and bother of getting a photo and fingerprints was also a welcome plus to the trust.

The problem for NFATCA was kind of simple.  If someone could just form a trust to avoid an anti-gun CLEO's tyranny, then there's no need to eliminate the signature from an individual transfer.

So they demonized the trusts and trust holders.

When ATF ignored them for years they sued the ATF to listen to their demands.

Stomping their feet and holding their breath, they eventually got their way and soon using an NFA trust will be a tedious endeavor.  A tedious endeavor that as of this moment still isn't fully defined.  At present I don't know what I will have to do to file a Form 1 or Form 4 after 13Jul16.

Thanks NFATCA!

But now I see they're at it again with suppressors now.

Guys, when you're dealing with people who hate you and are looking for an excuse to fuck you over, don't give them extra chances.

I say again:

There are two ways to start a rulemaking.

First is when the executive gets a burr up their ass to outlaw something.  This is how we get rulemaking that bans M855 and other SS109 ammunition as "armor piercing".  It's also where 5.56x45mm becomes "designed for" use in a pistol.

Second is when the citizens petition for a rulemaking.  They can suggest what rule they want to see when they petition, but the actual rule will be drafted by the agency and colored by the sitting administration.

Read that very carefully.

You are begging (which is what a petition really is) an agency to change a rule they've already made to make your life easier but they have complete control over what changes will be submitted for comment, and then whether to ignore those comments and do what they want anyways.

In most cases what this boils down to is "leave it well enough alone."

This is also why the best method of affecting changes to the regulations is by getting Congress to pass a law.

There is nothing broken with how suppressors are marked under the present rules.  There is no need at all to change them.  So why has NFATCA taken it upon themselves to demand ATF change the rules?

Update:

I'm not the only one noticing their meddling.

I Should Not Be The One Explaining This

Also file under "If you're so smart why didn't you know this?"

Rulemaking.

Its the process used by the regulatory agencies of the executive branch to make legislation in and around their sphere of influence.

There are two ways to start a rulemaking.

First is when the executive gets a burr up their ass to outlaw something.  This is how we get rulemaking that bans M855 and other SS109 ammunition as "armor piercing".  It's also where 5.56x45mm becomes "designed for" use in a pistol.

Second is when the citizens petition for a rulemaking.  They can suggest what rule they want to see when they petition, but the actual rule will be drafted by the agency and colored by the sitting administration.

Read that very carefully.

You are begging (which is what a petition really is) an agency to change a rule they've already made to make your life easier but they have complete control over what changes will be submitted for comment, and then whether to ignore those comments and do what they want anyways.

In most cases what this boils down to is "leave it well enough alone."

This is also why the best method of affecting changes to the regulations is by getting Congress to pass a law.

But it didn't.  When they proposed doing it, I remember people warning them that the sitting administration and their appointees weren't going to let that fly and the best case scenario was them doing nothing and ignoring the petition.

When the best you can hope for is status quo, don't rock the boat.  No, I am not happy that's true, but it doesn't change that it is.

NFATCA pressed on and got rulemaking opened up with an anti-gun president, an anti-gun head of BATFE with an anti-gun majority Senate.  What the fuck did you think was going to happen?

Well, Rulemaking 41P is what did happen and NFATCA is in full-on retcon that they started the ball rolling.  They're also very unhappy that people remember their role in getting this shit-sandwich submitted for comment.

PS:

Someplace I have a quote from someone at NFATCA talking about prohibited persons getting stamps through the "trust loophole" which is the real crux of what went wrong here.

Found it.

“The NFATCA expressed concern that persons who are prohibited by law from possessing or receiving firearms may acquire NFA firearms through the establishment of legal entities such as a corporation, trust, or partnership.”

"The Petitioner [NFATCA] expressed concern that an NFA firearm could be obtained 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 firearms, 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.”

NFATCA Are A Bunch Of Fucking Idiots

If you are a member, you're wrong and should feel bad.

Then you should terminate your relationship with them.

You should not do business with any company they endorse, and avoid doing business with places that hire NFATCA members and their families.

If you see a NFATCA member on fire, and you have to urinate really really bad, I'll bet you $50 that you can hold it until you reach a restroom with an appropriate label for your perceived gender.

If you happen to see a NFATCA member drowning, the mailing address for the US Coast Guard is:

US Coast Guard
2703 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE
Washington, DC 20593

Don't forget the stamp!

Near as I can tell not a single good thing has come out of them, so fuck 'em.

Because It Took Me This Long To Calm Down

I really, REALLY, hate guilt by association.

I've ranted about NFATCA before.  Several times.

On Facebook, on Tam's feed, I had a chance to confront the president of NFATCA about their role in getting 41P rolling.

He just doesn't see it.  That makes me sad.

One thing he did say in his reply was that he'd personally seen a forbidden person attempt to buy NFA stuff through a trust.

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ME AND MY TRUST??

That's exactly the same logic the gun banners use when they say "if just one life is saved".  Because to them since there's criminals breaking the laws with guns, we have to ban guns.

So since one person (and the only case I've ever heard of and only from the president of NFATCA) allegedly broke the law using an NFA trust, then everyone with an NFA trust is now suspect?  Every NFA trust was established with the idea of thwarting law enforcement?

Since the petition that got this ball rolling included the elimination of the CLEO sign off for individual manufacture and transfer someone there must understand the guilty until proven innocent nature of CLEO sign off.  One cannot help to think that they believe those of us with those trusts must be guilty and deserving of such scrutiny from our local chief law enforcement officer. 

With "friends" like this, we surly do not need enemies.

Some Fascinating Reading

Stamboulieh Law has 1/5 of the ATF's response to an FOIA request.

Seems that NFATCA has been just as cozy with ATF as everyone expected they were.

An excerpt (Ms Carlson's reply is above the original message):

Carlson, Krissy V. 

From: Carlson, Krissy Y. 

Sent: Thurs July 07, 2016 10:40 AM 

To: REDACTED 

Subject: RE: Prosecutorial action 

Hi REDACTED,I am not aware of these 16 active cases. Let me see what I can find out and I will share with you what I can.
Krissy Y. Carlson Division Chief Firearms and Explosives Industry Division
REDACTED

-- -Original Message- --- 

From: REDACTED 

Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 10:37 AM 

To: Carlson, Krissy Y. REDACTED 

Subject: Prosecutorial action

Krissy, Hope you're doing well. I know that REDACTED is already pursuing this action so I apologize for the duplication of effort. While I was attending the Orchid Advisors conference in Atlanta someone from ATF, can't remember who, mentioned that ATF had about 16 active cases involving prohibited persons acquiring NFA weapons through a trust. As you probably know I have personally know that this was one of the primary reasons that ATF had been in a panic about trusts. Everyone, including ATF, needed to find a way to clean this up. I knew three years ago ATF had at least one case but was looking for more information on this type of problem. The NFATCA has been hammered for saying that we needed to prove that trusts and prohibited persons were a problem resulting in 41F. I need a little help either directly or indirectly to prove to everyone that trusts, were in fact, being abused. I don't care about names as much as numbers that are worth mentioning to all of the naysayers who say we screwed this whole thing up.
Thanks for your helpREDACTED

REDACTED is apparently someone at NFATCA, and they requested that their names be redacted from the ATF's response to Stamboulieh.

I repeat from my post here from January 4, 2016; seven months before they queried ATF:

People who are forbidden to buy an NFA item used a trust to obtain one?  NAME ONE  just ONE and not just "I saw someone".  Name their name.  Link us to the arrest.  Link us to the news story.  You can't, can you?  Because it didn't actually fucking happen, you lying piece of shit.

Busted is the phrase we use here.

Update:

NFATCA assured us they'd seen trusts buying stuff, in person.  Yet cannot produce a single name and the ATF they're cozy with doesn't know about any either.  We need to not do business with people opposed to our interests.

Then Why Does It Take Six To Nine Months

Apparently, no background check at all is run when you send in a Form 4 using a trust or corporation.

I learned this from The President today.

I guess the examiners just do hookers and blow all day and issue stamps during rare moments of clarity.

I also learned that anyone who ever sells a gun is a filthy criminal unlicensed gun dealer.

SIGH

The list of things that's already illegal that He wants to make illegaler is astounding.  They really don't know the actual state of the law.

It's past damn time we fomented for the LAW to say PRECISELY what is and is not legal.  These constant and unending deaths of a million cuts via fiat regulation and executive tantrum has gone on far too long.

To the National Rifle Association (of which I am member in good standing), shall we change the rating system?  You don't get an A+ unless you introduce pro-gun legislation, A's are for voting for such legislation and against anti-gun bills every time no matter what they're attached to, B's are for voting for such legislation and against anti-gun bills only when they are stand alone, C's and D's are for being passive and taking no active roll, with your general posture deciding if you get the higher grade and F for any vote for any anti-gun legislation regardless of what it's attached to.

Why get extreme like that?

Because way too many people only look at that NRA rating and then vote accordingly.  This is a way to throw our weight around and buck business as usual.

All of this bullshit spewed today is about the law saying that forbidden people can't own a gun.

But the Gods Be Damned lawmakers couldn't just fucking say that, they had to include the verbiage that allows unaccountable and unelected apparatchiks to make law and call it regulation.  Take that verbiage out.

And a triple FUCK YOU to the NFATCA for fucking with the status quo on NFA in the first place in the half-assed way they did.  You fucking morons don't even comprehend the damage you've done here.  YOU made this an issue.  FUCK YOU.  People who are forbidden to buy an NFA item used a trust to obtain one?  NAME ONE  just ONE and not just "I saw someone".  Name their name.  Link us to the arrest.  Link us to the news story.  You can't, can you?  Because it didn't actually fucking happen, you lying piece of shit.  You just decided that it might, maybe, someday and asked the ATF pretty please to do something about it.  Sadly I suspect the real motive was the groundswell of unwashed "common" folk breaking into their country club with their silencers and doing so with great ease, and without having the requisite huge social standing to be real people like a TRUE NFATCA member.

Principled Stand

I don't do business with people who hate me if I can, at all, help it.

All it does it give them funding to better hate on me.

Time and again, though, they relent in their hate and I can do business with them.

I forgave S&W.  I've forgiven Ruger.

Smith Enterprise, Troy Industries and anyone associated with NFATCA are yet unforgiven because they have yet to relent.  And relent they must to be forgiven.

They have to say they're sorry and mean it.

Smith and Troy doubled down.

The board of NFATCA is laying low, hoping we don't notice they're whom they are and that we won't do anything about it.

Belittling me will not change that they hate on you.

Hot Under The Collar

NFATCA seems to have gotten what THEY wanted and changed the CLEO sign off to a CLEO notification, like a C&R FFL.

It looks like trusts will have to submit fingerprints and photos of everyone mentioned in the trust, or just the trustees, or just someone who makes decisions...  Or, even the lawyers reading it aren't certain.

I am hot under the collar about this because the constant insinuation that the only reason a person would establish an NFA trust is to go out and break the law.

I did not.

One huge thing that creating a trust gave us, here at Casa McThag, was Harvey, being a trustee and grantor, could possess the NFA items as well.

We're both law abiding gun owners and carry permit holders.  I'm an 03FFL.  We're the polar opposite of forbidden person.

There's no real reason that Harvey can't have access to a short barrel rifle, except that if I forgot to lock the safe one day, while I go to the store and she stays home, the ATF regards that as a transfer.  Big trouble.

In a trust, we both own it, so it's not a transfer if I'm not here and she can get to it.

That's all it was.  And it was presented to us as the proper way of doing things to comply with the laws, rules and regulations.

We did it the way we did it to OBEY the law, not break it.

NFATCA managed to make my life harder while making their lives easier.  I will never be happy when someone does that to me.  Not even when I am assured that it's good for me.  I'll make my own determination of that, thankyouverymuch.

Who can own an NFA item, or not, is exactly the same as who can own a gun, or not.  NICS works for that without photographs and fingerprints.  Why do we need them for a short barrel?  I don't need photographs and fingerprints to pay income tax.  Why do I need them to pay the $200 tax on an NFA item?

That's the tack we should have taken with NFA items, not giving people who despise us a chance to make up more onerous burdens.

Now it's off to the worthless congress critters for relief.

My Representative doesn't submit bills and constantly tells me he can't do anything because he's not on the correct committee.

One Senator is anti-gun and isn't up for reelection until 2018; the other is running for President and isn't bothering to vote anymore.

Huzzah!

And That Reminds Me

NFATCA's petition was primarily aimed at getting the CLEO signature removed from individual transfers.

The quote in the previous post reminds me.

I own my NFA items through a trust and I did not appreciate the implication that this was why a person would establish a trust in the first place.

The entire tone from NFATCA was that once the CLEO sign off was out of the way all good and honest people could now get individual transfers and only the sneaky, underhanded criminals would use trusts to own NFA items.

Should have kept your trap shut on Facebook and let this grudge simmer down, buddy.

Do you know why my NFA items are in a trust?  It's nothing nefarious.

The Boy can't inherit them.  He's mentally incompetent.  The trust is our means of making sure that he doesn't actually ever own the items he can't and to have them liquidated in a straight forward and legal manner to his benefit should something happen to me or The Lovely Harvey.

A side effect of trust ownership is that I don't have to have a special gun safe to lock my NFA items away from The Lovely Harvey because she's a trustee too.

Ponderous

The NRA is a massive organization.

Such creations do not turn on a dime.

The nature of this inertia means that sometimes an opportunity to do something small is missed but will save time and effort down the road.

I am willing to bet there's a whole department's worth of folks there who look back at those moments saying, "if only..."

I means that they kind of have to already be about something before it becomes an issue.

I freak out from time to time because the NRA is not an NFA organization.  They don't oppose NFA items and think they're neat like I do; but it's not what they're mostly about.

I want them to be more of an NFA org.  I fervently believe that if the NRA was a lot more active about it, then this whole thing where NFATCA and the rulemaking all went wrong.

NFATCA isn't a big enough gorilla.  The NRA is.  If they'd take the job.

Even as I type that.  Even as I want them to.

I wonder...

Should they?

It's nothing to cancel my membership over.

The only NRA thing we've cancelled here is The Lovely Harvey cancelled her subscription to The American Rifleman because I get it too and she wasn't really reading it.  Let them save the printing costs.

Ghost Gun

Yes, Senator, a convicted felon CAN order and own an 80% lower and all of the rest of a rifle.

As long as they leave it like that, they are in compliance with the law.  Laws that idiot anti-gun Senators like yourself wrote.

Want to know something, Charles?  It's still illegal for them to go past 80%, because the instant they do that 80% part becomes a firearm, and thus illegal for them to own and possess.

I checked, it's also illegal for a prohibited person to make a firearm.

Can't own it, possess it or make it.

Since the breathless reporting says that "criminals" have already noticed, I'm going to read that as two criminals total.  That's the minimum number to use plural.

Rifles of any kind are still statistical noise in gun related crime.

The presentation and set up of this article and the proven nesty nature of ATF and NFATCA make me wonder if the "former ATF agent Rick Vasquez" isn't actually a representative of NFATCA.  It matches their "potential energy = kinetic energy" thought process where they think that because someone might do something illegal it means that criminals ARE doing something illegal (therefore it must be forbidden).  He's also shown to have a pretty nice machine shop.  A couple of hours for him might be a lot slower for someone else.

The ATF agent they interview, Graham Barlowe, is from Sacramento, California.  Agent Barlowe, I have another theory for whom is making ghost guns in your area of operations, they're making guns that are "off list" to have a configuration that is banned by name, but not construction.

But let's talk about my "ghost gun" experience.

No serial number.  No background check.  4th attempt.  The Freedom 15 is a tedious process and easy to screw up.  The entry level kit is $340 and has enough material for 5 pours.  I used up one pour making color samples and three getting it wrong.  Yes, that makes it a $340 lower.  It took me an entire evening to get it right.  The rest of the gun is over $550!

Serialed.

Background check.  $269.55 for the lower.  $55 of untraceable cash purchase face to face at a loophole gun show for the 80% lower.  $85.80 to ship it to be engraved.  $133.75 to have it anodized after I'd done the carving.  This does not count the cost in tools, fixtures and jigs.  That's easily another $500 if you don't already own them, but they're reusable.

Notice the background check?  The place doing the anodizing mandated that.

Why did Marv and I make poured resin lowers?  For the experience and enjoyment.  We're not prohibited people looking to get around the laws.  We're indulging in our hobbies.

My 80% lower project was to get the markings pictured above.  The way I did it was literally the only legal way to get what I wanted.  The gun I was cloning is both actual government property and a machine gun not legally registered before 1986.  I cannot own the actual rifle I was issued, so this is what I made instead.

But notice in both cases it cost considerably more for me to get the "ghost" gun?  I cannot help but think that it's cheaper to get a non-felon buddy to do a straw purchase than go to the effort of an 80%.

Let's talk about effort.  Most criminals are not what we call hard working in the traditional sense.  Building a gun is real work.

UPDATE:

Remember this picture?

Do you remember which of these two items is a firearm and which isn't?  I know that the top one looks more like a gun, but it's the bottom one that's legally a firearm.

A Hearty Fuck You

To...

John Brown, of Northpoint Response Group.
Curt Wolf, of US Armament Corp.
Jeff Folloder,
Robert Landies of Ohio Ordnance Works.
Wayne Weber of H&K USA.
Robert Segel of Small Arms Review.

This is the board of NFATCA.  They are why eFile is down and not coming back.  They are why we're going to have to engrave the tube of the silencer rather than end-caps.

They are meddlers who are not on our side.

Starve them if you can.

Their responses to inquiries as to WHY they meddled sure echo the thought processes attributed so negatively to one William Ruger Sr.  Thoughts that led to boycotting Ruger, thoughts that some have not forgiven even years since his death and a complete change in the direction of the company.

Why on earth should we not treat these "people" the same way?

Never, ever, trust someone who justifies a law or regulation with, "No honest person," verbiage.  They're setting you up.

New Machine Guns

The Firearms Blog had a bit of a spat over someone using my unerring ability to say what they wanted to say in exactly the wrong way for their meaning to be conveyed.  They apologized for not seeing how it would be taken.

A sore spot among many people who can't afford a pre-86 MG is the feeling that those who can are actively working to prevent anything which would post-86 guns to be "freely" transferred.

As bumbling as NFATCA was over what leads to rulemaking 41P...  Jury's still out.

But what would happen to the value of those pre-86 guns?

On a lot of them, the value is going to plummet.  No way around it.

Guns made from parts kits will probably be affected.  They're not original at all.  No real provenance.

Completely original guns are likely to remain valuable as will guns with famous provenance.

I think the guns most affected will be the AR15.  I've recently seen conversions from semi-auto going for $25,000.  Such a gun is not really any more valuable than an ordinary semi-automatic AR if you can do your own Form 1; perhaps a few hundred more just in the saved effort.

$25,000 to (maybe) $2,000 is a heck of a hit.

The $16,000 for a registered drop in auto-sear will evaporate like a fart in the wind.  There isn't but $100 worth of professional machining in one of those; and you don't even need that level of skill to crank one out.

The Lightning Link will take a hit like that too.

People who bought MGs as investments probably are working against any change to the status quo that increases the supply of transferables.  People who bought MGs because COOL! are, I think, a lot more likely to be willing to take the depreciation because more MGs means more COOL! for them as well as everyone else.

There's something we can do to test the devaluation hypothesis.  Amnesty.  There's bound to be guns made right before an amnesty that are made just for such an event that don't exist now.  It'd be a good gauge of the pent-up demand as well.

Kinda related, I wonder if a case could be made that all pre-86 MG's are Curio and Relic.

Because...

Any other firearms that derive a substantial part of their monetary value from the fact that they are novel, rare, bizarre, or because of their association with some historical figure, period, or event. Proof of qualification of a particular firearm under this category requires evidence of present value and evidence that like firearms are not available except as collector's items, or that the value of like firearms available in ordinary commercial channels is substantially less.

Compare the price of a transferrable M16A2 to what a police force would pay.

In Seven Years

I've had my first short barreled rifle for just over seven years.

In that time I have been asked to show my tax stamp a total of zero times.

In that time I've seen others shooting their short barreled guns and I've never seen them asked for their stamp either.

The only time I've ever seen someone asked is with a machinegun and the examination was so cursory I think I could have used my SBR stamp to trick the range officer that it was for my illegal MG.  Oh yeah, it wasn't the cops asking about this dude's MG, it was the range officer.

Everyone knows that an unregistered SBR is illegal.  But nobody asks.

I've certainly been shooting it with uniformed cops in the next lane.  The only time one of them has asked about my SBR has been to ask, "can I shoot a couple rounds?"  With his buddy filming the fireball with his cell phone...

So, what's the explanation?

Everyone knows how simple it is to get the stamp and do this legally so everyone assumes that's what was done.

This is why the 41f crap from NFATCA rankles me so.

Honest people obey the law when nobody's looking.

Criminals don't obey the law unless someone who can arrest them is watching.

Honest people get the stamp.  Criminals are aware that nobody cares unless it's a machinegun, so they don't get the stamp.  Why waste the time, effort and money adhering to a law that won't get you noticed, let alone arrested; while committing the obvious felony of just having a gun in the first place?

The logic doesn't stand.