ATF guidance may have opened the door to something most people assumed was impossible: government-held machine guns being recognized as transferable to civilians. [Watch]
This is an area I claim no experience with, so perhaps those of you who do can weigh in. Is the government trying to get rid of old guns, and if so, will it affect existing collector values?
ATF had previously considered any full autos that were imported between 1968 and 1986 not to be fully transferable; they could only be transferred to and possessed by licensed dealers or government agencies. Such guns in the possession of a FFL who also paid the NFA special occupational tax (SOT) could, however, be retained by such persons if they decided to go out of business and give up their FFL and SOT. However the guns could only be transferred subsequently to an FFL-SOT. These guns were/are typically referred to as “pre-86 dealer samples.”
Recently, however, ATF has changed its interpretation of the laws. Now, if an MG was imported directly by or to a government agency between 1968 and 1986, or if it was imported and then transferred directly to a government agency by the licensed importer, ATF is now considering it to be fully transferable. That means that if a government agency later wants to sell it, it can transfer it on a Form 5 to an individual or to an FFL+SOT, and the gun remains a fully transferable gun that we peons can own.
Regarding collector values: A lot of non-owners of MGs fear that owners of transferable registered MGs have a vested interest in keeping the laws the same as they are. The argument is that the existing owners have an “I’ve got mine” attitude, and oppose repealing the Hughes Amendment in order to “preserve the value” of their collections. I know a lot of people in that world, both licensed dealers/manufacturers/importers (FFL+SOT), as well as ordinary collectors. I obviously can’t speak for everyone in that world, but I will say that among the ones that I know, each one is, to a man, a hard-core 2A proponent. I do not know a single one who would object to the loss of collector value or would oppose opening the registry up to new transferable MGs via Hughes Amendment repeal or strike-down. Indeed, virtually all of them oppose the NFA itself as the unconstitutional infringment it is.
So, rereading the text of the Second Amendment and understanding that arms include machine guns, my questions are “What is all this regulatory nonsense? Why are we still discussing it?”
There is no mechanism to prevent Congress and the various state Legislatures from passing legislation that ultimately will be adjudicated unconstitutional and hence unenforceable, null and void. What occurs in the meantime promotes joy for some and misery for others.