Some ranges will not let your shoot an sbr or supressor unless you prove legal possession. I live by two such ranges. It was a pain in the butt until everyone got to know me. It was just easier to have it than being told to leave.Originally Posted by whomever
"Some ranges will not let your shoot an sbr or supressor unless you prove legal possession."
That would be an excellent reason to carry them :-). The ranges around here have never asked.
(It would be fun for them to read through the 60 pages of trust to find Appendix F or whatever it is that lists the people authorized to possess the trust's stuff... hopefully they wouldn't do that every time)
That would be funny because some of the employees I’ve met at gun shops can barely read.
I just assume keep a copy in your range bag and not worry too much about it. The cloud, phone, etc backups to have it available in triplicates seems overkill.
Heck, even if you forgot the copy in your range bag, Im not sure how big of a deal it is. Sometimes I forget and it gives me a little anxiety and I then I tell myself its no big deal.
Doesnt the ATF have a database of this? I cant imagine you will go to prison for 10 years before you didnt have a copy of the paperwork with you.
Given I have never been asked by anyone to see it, if I was asked, and it was by a a local LE I would say lets call the ATF field office. And the ATF can run the serial through their database. What is the actual penalty for not having the paperwork with you? Probably a $100 fine or something? Since the $200 tax stamp hasnt been adjusted for inflation, the fine probably also isnt adjusted for inflation but idk.
Is the local PD going to want to jack you up so bad to wait a few hours for ATF to show up to run your serial only to give you a $100 fine? Unless you were a real dick to the cop or they want to nail you for something else, I cant imagine that happening. Or youre passing through NJ or something with it locked in your trunk as your moving from Georgia to New Hampshire but in that case NJ State Police will jack you up even if you have the paperwork, even if you have a federal badge yourself! So really what I am saying is I think if the police want to jack you up, theyll jack you up. But if your not a dick that is probably not going to happen outside of NJ/NYC. And even then the paperwork wont matter.
I mean they could look at your paperwork if they want to jack you up and say "but this isnt original" and you can say "it doesnt have to be original" and they can arrest you because they can do anything if they want to jack you up. Most cops arent dicks and most people on here are probably not the kind of person that even dick cops would want to jack up so its not something I worry about at all.
But maybe I should be more worried. Does anyone know of a case of a legal NFA stamp holder that was jacked up for not having paperwork with them? Or does anyone know what the actual penalty is if the ATF did want to make an example out of you for daring to take your legally registered .22lr suppressor out of the house without a piece of paper?
"Or does anyone know what the actual penalty is if the ATF did want to make an example out of you for daring to take your legally registered .22lr suppressor out of the house without a piece of paper?"
IANAL, and welcome corrections...
My understanding is that there is no legal requirement, at all, that you carry the paperwork with you, i.e. if you are a legal owner with the paperwork in your safety deposit box you will not be convicted of anything once all the legal proceedings run their course.
You do have to provide the docs to the ATF on request. As an aside, at least in the past, the ATF has sometimes been pretty careless in their record keeping and lost some of their NFA records, so you really want to be able to produce your own copies rather than relying on their records. Hence the safety deposit box, and redundant copies at home.
The risk of not carrying them with you has to do with the 'legal proceedings run their course' part. Consider an ordinary gun. In most states you don't need specific paperwork licenses to possess a gun. If you get pulled over, you don't have to have a receipt for the gun or any other paperwork - if the officer wants to arrest you, the burden of proof - reasonable suspicion, for an arrest - that the gun is stolen/you are a felon/etc is on the officer, it's not on you to prove the gun isn't stolen or you aren't a felon. It's his job to prove you are a crook, not yours to prove you are innocent.
NFA stuff is different - it's illegal to posses them in general, unless you have the tax stamp. So an officer might say 'Hmmmm, you have the suppressor, that's a crime, and I don't see any paperwork saying it isn't; I'm going to haul you off and let the system sort things out'. You'll beat the rap, as the saying goes, but not the ride. So everyone gets to decide whether that risk is worth carrying paperwork around with you. My personal choice, given local conditions and the freaking 60 page trust, is I don't carry paperwork; I have it at home and at the bank. You have to decide what your local conditions are, and your tolerance for risk.
To me, it's one of those things, like that we used to fill a half pint nalgene bottle with peppermint schnapps for ski camping trips. That's probably violating a law against open containers of booze in cars or something. I never worried about it; my traffic stop interactions with LEOs have been rare (I drive like an old woman) and non-confrontational. YMMV.
again, corrections welcomed!
My SBR original stampmis kept in my files at home but I carry a copy with me when I take it out.
You keep mentioning 60 pages of trust (three times). Why? Nowhere in the ATF regulations does it require any portion of a trust as proof of registration.
Granted, only the name of the trust is listed on the ATF forms and not the trustees individually but there is still no requirement to produce a copy of the trust on request.
If I'm off base here, educate me.
Section 3.7 Maintaining registration documents. A person possessing an NFA firearm registered as required by law must retain proof of registration, that is, the document showing the person’s registration, which must be made available to ATF upon request.55
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/un...ter-3/download
Dean,
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine
"The problem is not the availability of guns, it is the availability of morons."- Antonio Meloni
I make a two side copy of every stamp I have put them in a zippered money pouch. I have 5 of these and I put them in all of my gun bags and my main vehicle. Nobody has ever asked to see it but you never know.
Do these same ranges require everyone else that shows up with a firearm to produce a copy of their arrest record to prove they haven't been convicted of a felony or domestic violence and thus in legal possession of said firearm?
"Nowhere in the ATF regulations does it require any portion of a trust as proof of registration.
Granted, only the name of the trust is listed on the ATF forms and not the trustees individually but there is still no requirement to produce a copy of the trust on request."
Again, IANAL, but isn't the context here that you have been pulled over and the officer is trying to determine whether your possession of the NFA item is lawful? For something registered to a trust, the stamp only shows it is lawfully registered to the trust, not that *your* possession is lawful.
For example, Fred creates the 'Acme NFA Trust' that names Fred and Fred's wife Mabel as people authorized to possess a given suppressor. Fred loans the suppressor to his buddy Bob without adding Bob to the trust. Bob gets pulled over going to the range - Bob's possession of the suppressor is not legal; Bob goes to Club Fed.
If Fred gets pulled over with the suppressor and shows only the form showing the can is registered to 'Acme NFA Trust', the LEO who pulled him over has no way to verify that Fred's possession is lawful, so he could choose to arrest Fred until it can be verified that Fred is a valid user under the terms of the trust. Avoiding that trip to jail is the point of carrying the paperwork in the first place, so it seems to me carrying the stamp form without the trust doesn't buy you much. It's possible the officer would say 'Hmmmm, it's registered to someone, I'll just take this guy's word that he's listed in the trust', but he could also decide 'Suppressors are presumptively illegal, and I haven't seen anything verifying this guy's possession is legal, so I'll book him and let the lawyers sort it out'.
So if you are carrying paperwork so you can be 100% protected against getting arrested for what is actually legal protection, I'd think you need the trust.
Again, IANAL, and am happy to be corrected.
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