I thought.of this scenario the other day when updating my will. If I should meet my demise, the family listed on my insurance is entitled to all of my personal belongings, HOWEVER, if my family lives in NY or CA where everything except my 1911's is illegal...what happens to my weapons? Since the government cannot ship my firearms to my next of kin directly, nor can they ship them to either of these states, nor can my family even take possession without going through an FFL.

Has anyone come across this situation before? If so, how did it get resolved?

You should add some terms to your will clearing things up if they're ambiguous but:

Your lawful heirs can receive in interstate commerce, or come pick up, regardless of their state of residence, any firearms you leave to them, provided the firearms are legal for them to have.  If they're not, they could come get the firearms from your storage locker and take them elsewhere to store, or drive right to the gun or pawn shop and hock or sell them, or just toss them in the trash, as they may choose.

Your principal concern seems to be about needing an FFL, which is not required in the case of inheriting firearms from an estate.

Talk to your lawyer, preferably a gun trust lawyer.

When drawing up my NFA trust my lawyer asked me if any of the beneficiaries of the trust were residents of CA or elsewhere where the items would be prohibited.  I said no but asked what the remedy was and the answer pretty simple:  if an item is not legal in the beneficiary's state of residence then they cannot take possession of said item in their state.  They could, however, take possession of the item and/or store it in a location where the item is legal.

Your family would be entitled to this property but taking possession of them would be illegal by state law. They would probably have the option of transferring them to someone else who could legally own them in another location. This would almost definitely require the involvement of a helpful FFL owner, and maybe a service like gunbroker. I'm not a lawyer, but you may be best served having this conversation with your lawyer as well as a FFL holder you trust, and maybe put his card or other contact info inside the will document.

What I know is that the government will only fund a one time shipment of personal property to a single location specified by whoever is the primary next of kin (PNOK) listed on my life insurance policy, therefore, if I designate someone else to take possession of the weapons they would have to physically come and pick them up in person with my PNOK present. Once in their possession, I am uncertain as to how they would transfer them into their lawful ownership since I would not be present to bring them to an FFL for transfer.

I do not believe under any circumstances that my relatives in NY would be able to take possession of my ARs and high capacity magazines, I can't see the government of NY conceding to that, even for a deceased service-member.

I suppose the best I can do is spell all this out to the best of my ability in my will, get a legal review and have it notarized again, the family should be able to figure it out from there.

I'd contact a lawyer as mentioned in a previous posting...have them draw it up specifically dealing with these items and to whom you want them to go to.  Don't leave it up to speculation or what someone had done in the past.  We're talking about right now, with several thousand's of dollars of your property if you have any type of collection.  Hope this helps!

ARs grandfathered to current owners under the SAFE act are turned in to the gov't upon the owners death
They cannot be passed on to heirs living in NYS, although shipping them out of state may be an option.
And the liberals have the balls to say the SAFE act doesn't result in gun seizures

My personal ARs are in my will as going to my small part time PD. They can get more use out of them than my only brother who has his own AR and it beats thinking the guns would be destroyed once I am gone
My plate carrier goes to a  coworker who I know would have the most use for its components,
Hopefully I can escape NY before I die so this is not an issue



OP is talking about NYS, and since the passage of the SAFE act your advice doesn't hold true unless OP is passing his NY-legal guns to his immediate children.
Any other thing would require the use of an FFL for the relative to acquire the guns
SAFE act allows parents to bequeath guns to kids. It is so narrowly worded that it doesn't even allow the reverse inheritance of child to parent, or uncle to nephew, grandson or any familial relationship other than parent to child.