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Posted: 11/12/2015 1:01:37 PM EDT
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If the growth of companies over the last few years offering unfinished receivers is any indication, there
must be a very significant number of operational firearms out there that have been legally completed under the GCA's "personal use" rules. Eventually, an individual who legally makes a firearm for their own personal use (whether from an unfinished receiver blank or from scratch) will pass on. The question is, what happens then? The GCA and ATF says "no distribution". I have been unable to determine if that is absolute. That is, no ability to bequeath through inheritance in a regular will, living trust, or gun trust. Do the firearms in question instantaneously become contraband upon the builder/owner's death? Must they be destroyed? May they be willed to someone via inheritance? If so, who may receive them: immediate relatives? Or anyone (not likely)? Does anyone on the forum have any kind of definitive information one way or the other on this situation? That would include any sort of federal law, case law precedent, ATF "finding", pretty much anything written down by anyone with legitimate authority. I've searched a lot and haven't had any luck. Seems to me this is an important issue, and will become more so as time goes on. |
| After you build your own firearm, as long as it was not your original intent, you may do anything with it you choose provided all other firearms laws are followed. As long as you don't build it with the intent of selling it, should you decide you no longer wish to keep it, you are free to sell it, trade it, give it away, or die with it and let your next of kin decide it's fate. |
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I think it is legal to sell or otherwise change ownership of a homemade firearm (I'm not sure, verify for your self) what I can say is I have seen at least 1 homemade AK on a tapco flat sell here on the EE, it must have shipped to a FFL? I also went to a huge gun auction once and they had at least one very crude homemade pistol on the auction block, apperantly they had no problem transfering it?
Now I asked my FFL a couple weeks ago. I was buying a PTR91 and our state has a computor NCIC system now. He said they were refuseing "PTR" as the manufacturer  He figured out what name PTR uses on the data base list. So I asked him if you can only transfere guns made by manufacturers on the list, he said yes. I told him I had heard you could transfere homemade guns and you select "custom" as the manufacturer, he really did a  so I just dropped the subject.
Further, if you are worried, look at it this way: not only is it illegal to build homemade guns for resale, it is also illegal to buy any firearm with the intent to resell it, or to make a livelyhood out of selling guns. So does that meen you can NEVER transfere ANY firearm you've bought? I don't know. You tell me. |
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Quoted:
http://www.americanmethod.com/assets/images/items/Gonzales_Come_and_Take_It_sticker.png You are overthinking this. They don't exist. There was never an intent to sell. Your family. Your business. The end. +1000 |
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The below info is for Federal law only - your State laws may be more restrictive than this.
You may make a firearm for yourself. You may make as many as you want for yourself. You may not make one for anyone else or with the intent to sell or give it away. If you decide you no longer want to keep a self-built firearm, you may sell, give away, bequeath, or otherwise transfer any firearm you build for yourself to anyone who may legally own that firearm in your State, as long as all state laws are complied with. No one may help you perform the actual physical work of building a firearm. You may use borrowed tools, but you must do all the work. You may get advice and instruction from someone, but they cannot perform any work. The "80% Receiver" description is a marketing tool only. No such designation exists in law or regulation. A block of metal or plastic is either a firearm or it is not. There is no legal status of "partial firearm". Current 80% lowers have the fire control pocket left solid. As soon as you begin removing metal or plastic from that area, your 80% becomes a firearm. Whether starting with a solid slab of metal or an 80% lower you must do all the work. All of it. No else one may perform any of the physical labor. Serial numbers were not required on firearms until 1968. Today, the serial number requirement applies ONLY to licensed manufacturers. There is no Federal requirement that you serialize or engrave makers information on any non-NFA self-built firearm. Ever. BATF suggests that you do so in case of theft, but it is not required. A licensed gunsmith may legally accept a non-serialized firearm for service, repair, refinishing, etc. If one won't that is a personal choice, not a matter of law. In the United States laws constrain, not permit, conduct. Federal law does not provide a list of what you CAN do. It limits your freedom by defining what is illegal. Anything which is not illegal is by definition legal. |
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