Sunday, September 12, 2010
Folks who are around NFA guns for very long will find there are still a lot of DEWAT guns that were never registered during the Amnesty, and are now contraband unregistered machine guns. Folks have them in closets, up over the mantle... They can be stripped of parts, to make a parts set, and have the receiver thrown away. Torch cutting the receiver into 4 or more parts may be acceptable; you would have to contact ATF to find out the current standard for "de-mill"ing (short for demilitarize) a receiver; a de-milled receiver is not a firearm, it is scrap metal. A receiver only cut in half may well not be scrap; ATF has prosecuted folks where they could duct-tape together the receiver and get the gun to fire. Best to check on this before proceeding. The U.S. v. Staples, - U.S. - (1994), decision should end such ridiculous prosecutions, now the feds must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, you knew the gun was subject to the NFA, ie you knew it was a machine gun, that it could fire more than one shot with a pull of the trigger, and so on. But even if there were no prosecution, you could lose the receiver and or parts to a forfeiture, if ATF though it was in fact a machine gun, and it was not registered.
-Licensing
