Or is Less Paper Trail Better?

Better to get the letter.

What is the preban letter?

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Thanks..

It'll be a "collectors item" come 14 Sept 2004. Something to show that you own a really old AR-type rifle!

Fell-off...

Get the letter.  Under the law, the fact that your gun may be a 'grandfathered' pre-ban is a defense to the charge of possession.  Thus, the burden of proof falls upon you to show that the weapon in question was made prior to 9-13-94.

Even though I bought my rifle in NIB condition, I still called to verify and requested a letter for my files.
If for no other reason, it's on cool bushy letter head and looks and sound all official like. [:D]

I was just worried that if they ever OUT-LAW the Pre Bans they will know right where to go and pick them up?
Bushmaster told me they keep a Record of everyone that they send a letter to.
What Ya Think?

Shiny side out.[;)]

If I were to ask BM for a letter that confirmed I owned pre-ban ARs, and then sold those ARs, legally through an FFL, I would give whomever I sold those ARs to the letter confirming that the rifle was assembled prior to the ban, not that I owned them prior to the ban.  Who says the letter has to be addressed to the "current" owner?

What do I think? I think P.O. Box

So if you were a Prosecuter, are you sayinig you would prosecute a person with a grandfathered ser. # weapon/ Rec.? The burden of proof falls on them. I would like to hear this argument in court.
GG

The letter would not be sufficient in a court of law, that the rifle was assembled pre-ban, that would come in the form of testimony by a BM rep. or at least a notarized letter addressed to the court, not the owner(s), too much possibility for forgery.  The letter's best use would be to prevent an agent of the law at the local level from seizing, vouchering as evidence, the rifle and arresting and holding, possibly for a night or two, the owner.  But, if, "acting in good faith", the officer still did not believe the letter, he/she could detain the owner.  Who, now, runs the risk of temporarily having his/her rifle seized and invoiced, thereby causing the owner to go through a multitude of legal exercises to, get his/her rifle back, hopefully w/o scratches etc.

That's why this entire ban, is a nightmare from the law enforcement, POV.

Should an individual be arrested, in poss. of a legal pre-ban, and charged w/ the post ban felony, even if acting in good faith, the officer, and municipality runs risk of lawsuit, as the gov. has not done an adequate job of making the serial # issue an accessible database for the leo to access.  If the gov. makes the law, the resp. is on them to make it enforceable w/o undue hardship on the law abiding.

The sticking point becomes, ideas like"adequate" and "good faith" and "undue".  Which are abstract, and would have to be weighed and measured by a court.  LoL -S2

As has been mentioned 1 billion times on this site, as per the AW ban.

The AW ban OUTLAWED all semi automatic assault weapons having a pistol grip, detachable magazine and any of the following, folding stock, bayo lug, flash suppressor etc.

Technically if they prove that the weapon in question is an assualt weapon and the defendant possessed it, they have proven a crime.

Oh, the defense written into that law is, if the possessor can prove that the AW they had was an AW prior to AW's being outlawed, then they are not in violation of the AW law.

B.S.

The AW ban out lawed the manufacture/possesion of new AWs for civilians. And defined what a AW is. Not including the Mag. part. It did not ban ALL Semi-AWs. But it converted to those semi-AW to ASSUALT WEAPONS.
GG #1000

Well where I live we dont have registration. There fore you dont have to answer for the weapon. You can sell it, say you bought them to grind them up to get them off the street. You will need to say something though.
GG

Thanks Oly-M4gery...I know we've been whipping this dead horse for years.  I just hope we can put this issue to rest in 2004 with Congress NOT renewing the ban, so the issue will be moot.

SULACO2 - The weight and credibility of the evidence (whether or not the letter has been forged) is an issue for the jury to decide.  I don't practice criminal law, but were I defending someone on this charge, I think the letter alone would suffice.  That said, I'd probably still go the extra step of getting a notarized statement from the manufacturer just to seal the deal.

The fact remains, however, that a weapon's status as a bonafide preban is a defense to the charge, it is not an exception.  Thus, the letter really doesn't have anything to do with whether a LEO can haul you in on a charge of possesion.  An officer of the law does not determine the weight or applicability of a suspect's potential defenses; they simply determine if there's probable cause to believe a suspect has committed a crime.  A suspect's defenses are brought in a court of law, and the weight of which is determined by the judge or jury.  Granted, BATF and the feds don't seem to show much interest in going that far with this law, but they can if they want.

From [url]awbansunset.com[/url]

Rifles

Specifically, a rifle is considered an "assault weapon" if it can accept a [red]detachable magazine[/red], and possesses two or more of the following features:

Folding or telescopic stock
Pistol grip protruding conspicuously beneath the stock
Bayonet mount
Flash suppressor or threaded barrel
Grenade launcher
Among this list of "evil features", only one item initially stands out to the layperson as possibly making the firearm significantly more dangerous, and that is the grenade launcher. However, since grenades and the components to make them are already extremely tightly regulated as "destructive devices", grenade launchers are irrelevant. It would be a fair assumption to say that perhaps "grenade launcher" was added to the list simply to provide a certain degree of shock factor.

=======================================================

From [url]www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/922.html[/url]

18 USC 944
(v)


(1)[red]It shall be unlawful for a person to manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon.[/red]

(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to the possession or transfer of any semiautomatic assault weapon otherwise lawfully possessed under Federal law on the date of the enactment of this subsection.

(3) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to -

(A) any of the firearms, or replicas or duplicates of the firearms, specified in Appendix A to this section, as such firearms were manufactured on October 1, 1993;

(B) any firearm that -

(i) is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action;

(ii)has been rendered permanently inoperable; or

(iii) is an antique firearm;

(C) any semiautomatic rifle that cannot accept a detachable magazine that holds more than 5 rounds of ammunition; or

(D) any semiautomatic shotgun that cannot hold more than 5 rounds of ammunition in a fixed or detachable magazine.


The fact that a firearm is not listed in Appendix A shall not be construed to mean that paragraph (1) applies to such firearm. No firearm exempted by this subsection may be deleted from Appendix A so long as this subsection is in effect.

========================================================

What was it that you were saying Gunguru?

GG -

Read the law again; it bans all statutorily defined assault weapons, but creates several defenses to a charge of possession, one of which is for the "pre-bans" we all know and love.

[edited to thank Oly-M4gery for providing the text of the law...Thanks Oly!]

GG -

And before you try to make the argument that its an exception, not a defense, let me direct you to note the similar construction of 18 USC 922(o) as well as
U.S. v. Gonzales, 121 F.3d 928 (5th Cir. 1997) and U.S. v. Just, 74 F.3d 902 (8th Cir 1996).


Class dismissed.

[LOL]

[:P]
[img]http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid20/p4c22de7d7d3e1d9e6d825a257ec48fb5/fdbe14ef.jpg[/img]

I bought Mine from a local dealer, brand new. He got it direct from Bushy.
Serial number is below 900.
I'm not worried about it.
I know mine's preban. I still have the reciept.

Seems I sumed it pretty well to me. Oly M4, the first part you posted defines a AW. The second part basically covers possesion and manufacture. I stated that it made semi AW into AWs. Refering to pre bans be cause they are alredy made. I beleive there is no such thing as a Semi AW in the US. A postie is a Semi rifle.

I havent edited my post. So please tell me what I am missing?

You can never tell. once shooting a cop came and looked at our guns out of curiosity. He knew mine was a preban because it had triangle HGs. Who knows how people think.
GG

GG -

I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking, but let me try and explain it another way...

Read the first part of Oly's post.  It gives the basics of the statutory definition of an "assault weapon".  Its not in the exact same fomat (word for word) as it appears in the US Code, but it contains the relevant elements of the definition.  You may not like that definition of a semiautomatic "assault weapon", but thats part of how they are defined under federal law.

Now take a look at your preban.  Does it fit in that definition?  Does it accept a detachable mag and have two or more defined features?  If so, its a semiautomatic "assault weapon" under the law, regardless of when it was built.

Read the next section Oly-m4gery provided (in red).  That section makes it unlawful to possess that assault weapon.  The very next section creates the defense - that it was lawfully posessed prior to, or on the date of  enactment of the ban.  It can (and has) been argued that section actually is an exception rather than a defense, but in interpreting an extremely similarly worded provision in 922(o), at least two federal courts have found the second exculpatory clause to be a defense rather than an exception.

Yeah... what Shaggy said.

what if it left the factory as a lower so all you have is a letter from the store owner that says he sold it as a complete rifle before the ban. Would that letter be good enough for you?  Do you think it would realy be credible in court?

 I Have asked this question three times in the last two days and I apologize for that but I am looking at one to buy and it fits that criteria.
I don't want to put all that money into something that would'nt be a legal preban

Anyone?

Silas -

I think you're fine, and the chances you'd actually need that letter are pretty damn slim, but its not as good as a letter from the manufacturer.  If it were me, I'd buy it though.