A secretary in our office asked me the following this morning:

Her sister-in-law inherited a fully automatic weapon when her husband passed away. I have no clue if the weapon was/is owned legally, but my guess would be that it is. What does the lady need to do to own/possess or preferably sell the weapon?

Supposedly, she has already been visited by two state troopers and sheriff's deputy trying to purchase the weapon, but was reluctant to do anything without knowing what's legal. I was going to call the local ATF office, but decided to ask here first.

She needs to talk to a class 3 dealer, if she has/knows where the paperwork is on the firearms, I'd call the dealer listed on the paperwork before calling the Feds or selling it to ANYONE.

The dealer can give her the best advice and not bring the heat down on her at this time.

Speak with a dealer. PM inbound

Have a local FFL/SOT walk her through the process.  Assuming that she's the executor/administrator of her late husband's estate, she can sign off on the F4 to transfer the gun IF it is in the registry.  She needs to look through her husband's files for registration paperwork, could be either a F1 or F4 depending on how old he was and how long he had it.

Also, most people who own Title II firearms don't have just one machine gun in the safe, they often have some suppressors and SBR's.  She needs to know if there are any other Title II firearms in the inventory before selling.

I'm waiting on information from her. I appreciate all the information.

The lady at work advised me Friday that her husband had his FFLs. I'm still waiting to hear back from her, I just don't want her to do anything that might get her into trouble.

If that's the case she really needs a local FFL/SOT to eyeball the paperwork in case his license was still active and he had any post-sample in inventory. It also depends on whether he was running as an LLC or sole proprietor.

ATF is actually sympathetic in these situations and will help as much as they can as well.