Quote:
Originally Posted by nmckenzie
Used to work for a Class 3, but that was an awful long time ago, so please forgive my ignorance. What's an NFA Trust?
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As I understand it, a trust was a way to get around the CLEO sign-off, because there are (hard as this might be to believe) SOME COPS out there that don't believe that law-abiding citizens should own machineguns.
So you set up a trust, and the Trust owns the machinegun. With a Trust there is no CLEO signature, there are no pictures or fingerprints.
And there seems to be some added advantages.
If you own a machinegun, and want to let your buddy Frank go shoot it, you gotta go with him. If you just hand it to him, saying, "Here. Go play. Bring it back when you're done", you've made an illegal transfer of an NFA item. But if Frank is listed on the Trust documents, it's just as much his as it is yours, and he can go play with it whether you are there are not.
When you croak, the guns get held up while the court plays with your will, before it/they can be transferred to your beneficiary. If your kid is part of the trust, the gun(s) can go straight to him. I'm not sure if new paperwork has to be made, taking your name off the Trust, since you are now dead, but the kid has the gun(s) without going through probate. And since it did not go through probate, there is no official court record, somewhere, saying that young Tommy Jones now owns three machineguns. Yes, they know that at the ATF, but they don't know it at the local courthouse, where any bored clerk thumbing through the files could find it.
As I say, that's the way I
UNDERSTAND it to work (I could be completely wrong). None of my stuff was done with a Trust. Both sheriffs I've had dealings with have not had any problems with signing off.