A legal question here since the autosear ad brought it to mind and I had forgot to ask anyone about..

I have a friend of a friend who "inherited" a Colt AR-15 that had been modified with M-16 parts and a drop-in sear. Fearing legal issues, he quickly replaced all non-AR parts and removed sear and re-legalized his AR. However, he knows the drop-in sear is valuable and would like to see it "registered." He is very paranoid about calling ATF to ask... but he wants to do the right thing.

How would he register a drop-in auto sear that probably existed before the law was made? Can he sell it to someone with a Class 3 license? Is there a "grandfather" clause?

Any info I will pass on...

Rmpl

[:K]

S----O-----L.................

Seems the key word is "inherited",, BUT by what means? Was it a Form-4 gun passed along as part of an ESTATE distribution to lawful heirs, or was it a "garage job" given to somebody??

If it is a lawful Form-4 gun, you need to find the Form-4 and other relative info to the
deceased's estate to do a Form-5 transfer to a lawful heir through the estates executor/ATF.

The Form-5 will be a "tax-exempt" to the heir (family member able to lawfully own NFA). As of current, only the estates' executor can possess the gun, until it can be lawfully transfered. The best thing to do is call around and find a C2 or C3 in your area and explain the situation and get further advice before a Form-4 gun gets lost and taken out of the system.

If it is a "garage job",, you are S---O---L.
IT IS CONTRABAND!!

Just keep it, [:K]

Take it to the sheriff and ask him.[:K]

Uh, yeah. I'm sure he would do that....hehehe

Rmpl

It's real simple.  If it's not registered, your friend is committing a felony.  He needs to destroy it.

Inspect it for a serial # on the body first, if there is, call ATF from a pay phone across town and ask if that serial # exists. If yes, find the Form-4, it could be worth $4500 +/-...........................If it is a garage job, set it on a railroad track, the train will really flatten it. We used to do nails and coins when I was a kid.


EDITED because I have poor spelling/punctuation sometimes.

Your response is the first reasonable one of the whole bunch.

Find out if it is registered.  If it is not, it is contraband and you should dispose of it.

Is there a form 1, 3, 4 or 5 for it somewhere?  If so, then this paper makes that little hunk of metal worth big bucks.

If you cannot find any paperwork, then you need to contact the BATF and see if they have it on file.  If they do, they will not tell you much about it, but may say it is "registered."  If they say it is registered and you do not have any paper on it, you need to do some digging around.  When you say inherit, is this is the sense of someone died?  If it is likely that the dead person was the owner and it was registered to them, the executer of the estate can contact the BATF NFA branch with paperwork showing they are executor of the estate for so and so, they need to verify if the DIAS is registered and if so, can they get a copy of the form whatever.  You could then start the paperwork to obtain it from the executor of the estate.

Best of luck...

mark