My oldest customer (literally 4473 sequential number 00001) asked if I could help him with an issue he is facing.

He wants to transfer an heirloom rifle (a beautiful Winchester 1894 manufactured in 1904) to his brother-in-law in Illinois. The BIL has a valid Illinois Firearms Owner Identification Card and over the last few decades has purchased firearms from various gun shops in the greater Chicago area.

My customer travels.  A lot.  He planned to take the rifle with him on an upcoming trip through Chicago and to go in person to a Illinois-based licensee to do the transfer to his BIL (i.e., he transfers gun to Illinois-based licensee, BIL does 4473 plus whatever else needs to be done, passes NICS check, etc.).  

His BIL informed him his usual licensee claims that Illinois law mandates that the rifle be shipped to them from a licensee here in Virginia (i.e., he cannot bring it in person).  

As we all know, there is no federal regulation mandating incoming interstate shipments be from a licensee. Likewise, there is no federal regulation preventing a person from taking a firearm to a licensee in another state for purposes of transferring it to a resident of that state.

Is there an Illinois regulation mandating that transfers from outside Illinois come from a federal firearms licensee in the state where the owner resides?  If so, can you provide a citation to the section in the Illinois Code and regulations?

Thanks for any assistance given.

Can’t answer legally, but I did exactly that a year or two ago. I’m a Wisconsin resident, and built an AR for my nephew in IL. I drove down with it and we went to a gun shop, and did the transfer there. No issues at all. We left the rifle with the shop until his checks came back of course.

Dont think theres an actual law prohibiting it, just sounds like a FFL that just doesnt want to do it and makes things up as an excuse. We had one here (WI) that spouted off all kinds of "laws" that were not even laws. Gee I wonder why he's out of business now.

May wanna post this up in the IL Hometown forum.

Perhaps BIL should ask some other FFLs in IL to do the xfer and see what they say?

Sent you an IM. There is no law that states a FFL has to have a gun from out of state shipped to him, the ffl is a retard.

Shocking...

About ten years ago, I wanted to transfer a pistol to my brother in then gun friendlier Virginia. Had a dealer tell me that I would have to ship it to him, no delivery in person. Found another dealer.

Thanks for the input.

I spent about 10 minutes on the phone with the guy.  I didn't think it helped.

Then I get a text from my customer that the Illinois-based FFL called ATF and was told I was right.  He was overjoyed at the idea of buying guns from non-adjoining states like Hawaii (why Hawaii I do not know). It leads me to wonder where he's been getting new stock from.

Still, another day, another good deed done. It was a winner.