Grandfathered in, so could you still SBR them?

I was around then but don't have first hand experience. My understanding is that yes you could file, but the resulting SBR still had to comply with the ban, so no flash suppressor, bayonet lug, or collapsible stock.

Correct.  SBRs still had to comply with the AW ban.

So, just to clarify (for the upcoming Easter Brunch discussion with the liberal family)...

During the last AWB, which also saw the Columbine shootings as well as other issues, you could have still owned SBR's, suppressors, or DD's?

I could have had a direct thread can on my SBR with attached M203, as long as I didn't have an adjustable stock, flash hider, or sharp stick at the end of it? And no 30rd mags other than the ones I already owned?

The VA Tech attack was perpetrated with hand guns and a backpack full of 10 round mags.

Thanks for the answers, but none of them answer the question of if I have an ar15 and the ban goes into effect can I still apply for a form 1 during the ban?

What ban is going into effect?

Nobody has a crystal ball to divine what a future ban will look like.

You already got the answer of what happened in 1994.

A mass shooting could be done with a brace of blackpowder revolvers and a bag full of loaded cylinders.

I got a "my understanding" answer, sounds good

Just get a real machinegun.
Even during the last grab for power, an M16 could have any evil feature desired.

The 94 Assault Weapons Ban only affected new manufactured items.  Anything made prior to it could have any combo of features.  So if you had an older AR, you could SBR it and put anything on it you wanted.

The ban did not affect the ability to file a Form 1 and create a SBR, but the NFA law did not trump the ban.  So any rifle made by you, even with a Form 1, still had to follow ban rules.

So, you could have a fixed stock, a short barrel, and have a brake on the end, or plain, but no flash hider.  And don't even think about adding a bayonet lug to your SBR!

By the time of the ban, all MG's were from 86 or older, so no registered receivers were of them were affected by the terms of the ban law.  Now if you had a registered sear, and dropped it into another rifle, it's my understanding that the MG aspect trumps everything else, and you could put a MG sear in a post 94 receiver, and have both short barrels, and flash hiders, folding stocks, etc. but not 100% about that.  I know MG trumps other NFA items - not sure if it would trump the ban stuff. I would think so as you are not creating a new firearm, and so are not making one via Form 1.

why waste your breath...  you will only convince them to ban everything but a sharp stick and but they might ban assault sharp sticks...

Fun fact, at the time of the Y2K craze, a pre ban Colt in the box was about the same price as a clone RR.  About $3000-3500.

You could not have a threaded barrel on any AWB compliant purchased post 1994.  You could have a brake pinned and welded or silver soldered. I did pinned brakes and drilled them out after the ban sunset.

So if you owned a suppressor (I had none during the ban, they weren't as popular or common then as they are now), you could not do direct thread on any AWB compliant gun, but you could do something like a permanently attached Keymo brake or permanently attached 3 lug or something like that, as long as it wasn't an evil flash suppressor.

If anyone here could predict the future, I imagine they would use it predicting powerball numbers.

So until we see the wording of this ban going into effect, nobody can help.

During the AW Ban, the ATF counted suppressors as "flash hiders" which were an evil feature.  Only one evil feature was allowed per semi-auto rifle.  So it was illegal to add them to an AR with a pistol grip.

I think you could put them on something like mini-14 with sporting stock, as that would be only one evil feature.  

The AW did not apply to manually operated firearms, except for magazine capacity, so it was ok to suppress bolt guns and things.

I have never, ever heard this, and I was in my 30’s when the ban started.  As I remember it the issue was that threaded barrels were banned, so if you were using a direct thread suppressor, it wouldn’t attach.  If you used a mount, it had to be a muzzle break mount, not a FH mount, and had to be permanently attached.  People certainly bought and used suppressors during the ban years.

Don't assume any supposed upcoming ban will allow any grandfathered items whatsoever.

The ATF definitely considered a suppressor a flash hider at the time.  

However, you could put a suppressor on a "traditional" post ban pistol (like a Glock) as a pistol could have a pistol grip + another evil feature (like threaded barrel + flash hider or suppressor) and still  not be considered an "assault weapon".  Other post ban  pistols couldn't be suppressed like a Intratec AB10 with a mag  outside of the grip (evil)  or a Deagle which weighs more than 50oz (evil) as adding a threaded barrel/flash hider/suppressor to these handguns would bring their evil feature count to "2" making them an assault weapon.

Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:
Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator
A manufactured weight of 50 ounces (1.41kg) or more when the pistol is unloaded
A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm.

So you could take a post ban glock and add a threaded barrel (one evil feature) and attach a flash hider or suppressor  and still keep the evil feature count at "1" making it not an assault weapon.

On a rifle it was different.  Both the pistol grip and the threaded barrel or flash hider were considered evil features, so the pistol grip brought you up to the line on the evil feature count by itself.

Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and has two or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Bayonet mount
Flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
Grenade launcher

The ATF wrote a letter stating as such.

http://www.titleii.com/bardwell/atf_letter51.txt

A firearm silencer or muffler would also function as an effective
flash suppressor; therefore, a semiautomatic rifle, such as an AR-
15, having a silencer or muffler and a pistol grip would qualify as
a semiautomatic assault weapon as that term is defined in section
921(a)(30)(B).

To put a suppressor on a rifle legally between 1994 and 2004 it needed to go onto on a  post ban assault rifle with a machinegun sear installed (making the whole gun a machinegun),  a preban semi-automatic assault rifle, a non-assault semi-auto rifle where the suppressor/flash hider would be the sole evil feature (like a mini-14), or a non-semi auto rifle like a Remington 700.  However, a silencer (threaded barrel or not) could not go onto a post ban AR15 with an existing pistol grip.   You could also put a suppressor on an AOW as well as it was neither a handgun or rifle.

In terms of SBR registration, you could file a Form 1 on a semi-auto rifle and it would come back stamped in red, that the build must comply with the assault weapon ban.   It didnt matter if the original host gun was pre-ban or post-ban (as the ATF didnt know if a gun being registered was pre/post ban)  as my preban host Form1 submissions at the time came back with that restriction stamped on them.    Below is one of my F1s from that time period on a preban rifle.  



The prevailing theory at the time (although I don't know if it was ever formally addressed) was that SBRing a preban pistol (like an SP89) meant it had to comply with the AWB provisions as you were both making an NFA firearm and manufacturing a new rifle.    If you were F1ing an existing rifle you were just making an NFA firearm and its previous preban status remained intact.

All that said, many people put suppressors on post ban rifles and/or made SBR assault rifles out of preban pistols during this timeframe as well.

In terms of future bans/restrictions....who knows what the law will look like.

Thanks for the detailed answer (on my phone so I dont reply much but felt like I owed you one lol)

I also think you did not see a lot of SBR's being built because you still needed a CLEO sign off.  Even though I lived in a fairly conservative part of WI, I think getting a CLEO signoff would have been unlikely.  AR's where no where near as mainstream as they are now, and then along came the option of doing a trust which negated the signoff need.

If you're talking about a hypothetical repeat of the 94 ban - remember threaded barrels and flash suppressing devices were a no-no.

If you're talking about actual bills of the sort that have been floated for the last 10+ years.... forget it.  You are not barracks lawyering your way around most of the restrictions, and trying to convince yourself now that you'll somehow magically be able to get what you want while staying compliant is not very helpful.

The main problem with stamping an SBR at some point will be that you're adding it to the registry; however, currently with AR's you can at least "un-SBR" it any time you want without actually having to notify them.   They can show up, and you can just tell them you sold the upper or the lower, either one, to some random dude.  If they start passing anything, one of their first orders of business will be to fix that with banning private sales.

And in the long run, it doesn't matter what the firearms laws are; the reason they care is because they plan to do things to people that those people don't approve of.  They're not going to suddenly give up on that - and they're not after guns simply because they don't like guns.  It's not even because they don't like YOU having guns, it's because they don't like YOU.   This is the "bargaining" phase of coming to understand that for many people.

The 94 ban did fuckall from a practical standpoint, it's not like those who intended to break the law couldn't just configure their firearms in an illegal manner.

My understanding was very few people SBRed anything back then (really SBRs didn't seem to take off till ~2004ish)

very few people knew about NFA / tax stamps and fewer could get cleo signoffs (pre-internet, pre-trust, pre-eform) AND paper forms back then often got "lost" and took a year.

ar15's were not all that popular (evil, poodle shooter, not proper wood and steel, jammed in vietnam... those attitudes were pretty common amongst gun owners back then) and short barrels for them were practically unheard of.  If you asked anyone they'd wonder why you'd want to reduce your sight radius and velocity of .223 and you'd struggle to even FIND a short AR barrel for sale (you'd have to chop one and open the gas port).   Back then if you wanted an AR you probably wanted it to look like a .mil clone (M16Ax), the M4 wasnt officially adopted until 1994 (and even now and ESPECIALLY back then, $200 wasn't worth 1.5"

pre-86 MG were still not that much more than the semi auto version and the hassle / CLEO / paper-wait / $200 tax (which in 1994 was like what $400 is today) was the same so if you were going to SBR something, might as well get the MG version of it.  (practically zero SBRs were on the registry 1986 and before).  MG prices did not skyrocket until later when the internet and trusts came around (~2004ish).

There was a thriving online NFA firearm community from the mid 90s on. The earliest places were Machinegun News, Vollmer’s, Subguns, Sturmgewehr, and Biggerhammer discussion boards. Many people discussed SBRs, SBSs. Trusts were not in use, but many used Corp/LLC, which completely removed CLEO signature.

Transferable MGs were often still 2x the price of their semiauto counterparts. This prompted many to dismiss buying a MG, even with that retrospectively minimal price difference. Things like HKs 9x were commonly SBRd. Then came the Todd Bailey HK clones and many of the mp5 clones were SBRd during the ban years. Lots of 9mm ARs too.

MG prices rose dramatically each year beginning in the late 90s. The internet definitely pushed it along. A transferable Colt M16a1 was around $3k in 97. By the time I bought my first in 01 they were $6-7k. A year or so later they were $9-10k. HK Sears were around $5-7k in 04.

The 94 ban dramatically increased the desire for ARs and all other mil pattern rifles. They immediately became popular. Few people wanted to SBR a post-94 rifle due to the lack of being able to use a flash hider and/or sound suppressor. But there were still many who registered their pre-94 ARs as SBR. I almost did so myself at one point. As for shorter sight radius, some of the most popular ARs back then were 10.5 and 11.5 barrels with the permanently attached XM177 type faux moderator. In the mid/late 90s, the M4 was the new hotness and gunsmiths were already perm attaching muzzle devices.