Moderator: If you feel there is a more appropriate section, please feel free to move this there.
This poll is to conduct research on changing the NFA rules. While I would support a complete removal of the law, I don’t believe that it will happen anytime soon.
So what I’m trying to do is appeal to a politicians base emotion; greed. I plan to write to a willing congressional delegate to change the law, and greatly lower the cost of an NFA tax stamp. I hope this will also help repeal the 1986 full auto law, as well.
Please, answer the poll and tell me what you think. I will be cross posting this at every gun forum for which I am a member, and ask that you do NOT hit the poll at the other sites, in order to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the poll.
The choices are:
I would not own a registered firearm or device, regardless of cost
I would own a registered firearm or device, regardless of cost
I would own a registered firearm or device if the cost were greatly reduced
I would own multiple registered firearms or devices if the costs were greatly reduced
I do ask that we try to keep this poll at the top for at least a week, so that I may collect as much data as possible. Once I have collected as much as I can, I will be writing Doug Lamborn to propose the bill, or whatever measure may be used.
While I appreciate where you are coming from, and I think you are likely onto something in considering the financial angle, NFA law is a dangerous hot button issue with no real upside for a professional politician in the current legislative climate.
If anything, I would prefer that NFA law be left unexamined and out of the news altogether. We aren’t going to get widespread public support for any substantive changes in our favor, and if anything, it seems more likely that whatever awareness we might create would only be used as justification for the imposition of further restrictions.
Washington has already proven that they are willing to ban the ownership of an entire class of firearms with the stroke of a pen (1986). Do we really think that they would hesitate to take this path again if they saw even the remotest political advantage in doing so? One misstep, and it’s “say goodbye to your SBRs” gents – and good luck retaining any of your existing transferables.
Don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I’m inclined to let sleeping dogs lie on this one.
As stated elsewhere (1911Forum), we would also do well to keep in mind that the transfer tax has not changed since 1934. If we jostle this particular hornet’s nest too much, we could very well end up with a push to have that figure adjusted to the value of the dollar in 2011. For the mathematicians among us, that works out to over $3,300 per transfer. It would be rather foolish of us to think that we would ever see these fees reduced, when you consider how static they have remained over time, and it is really the finite supply of transferable MGs that has pushed NFA ownership out of reach – not the transfer tax.
As has been mentioned, the problem isn’t the $200 NFA tax stamp. When you figure for inflation, the $200 stamp as a percentage of annual income is about the smallest it has ever been. It has not been adjusted for inflation. Back in 1934, $200 represented a significant chunk of annual income for the average American family. The NFA tax stamp’s cost was over 10% of annual income to a person back in the day. Now it costs less than 1% of annual income to a modern individual. If they were to adjust it, it’s going up not down.
With the registry closed for freely transferable select fire guns, the prices of the guns have gone way up and $200 is about the least expensive part about getting one. -Yes, a $200 tax stamp on NFA stuff is annoying. However, trying to lower the tax is going to have close to no public support and it’s going to bring a lot of unwanted attention. Even within the shooting community, NFA is totally a niche interest.
It would be cool if they opened the registry for select fire guns so we could get new stuff but this is one of those things where if it opens up to debate, the public is simply going to want machine guns banned as a class. Even in the Heller case, it was clear that there is not much support for them to be owned by individuals. And that makes the issue a loser for a politician who wants to make it cheaper and less restrictive.
I’ve thought of this very same thing, and I applaud your efforts. However I must agree with the other posters, this has way too much potential to back fire in our faces.
It’s obvious how ignorant most of the anti-gun crowd is regarding firearms and current laws, why alert them to the NFA? I can already see them calling it the “tax loop-hole.”
I would gladly pay a $1,000 tax stamp to own a newly manufactured full auto rifle, but the truth is, it not going to happen.
I own multiple NFA items. The $200 tax was not the issue.
The cost of the newly manufacturer item was an issue.
I would own full auto guns, but the cost of the item is restrictive.
If you are going to pressure the Gov. to change. Tell them to use the manufacturer of new fully automatic guns as a poison pill on any bill the current administration REALLY wants to pass.
This is the one thing the current Democratic congress/executive has done an excellent job of. Once inflation starts creeping up quickly again, that $200 stamp is going to be even smaller by comparison.
Now that wait time has dropped, and the RLT method has become to common to throw out via bureaucratic fiat, the system isn’t too bad at all right now.
I WOULD NOT protest the cost of the tax stamp. The $200.00 tax is the least of my concern. What I would bring to bear is that the NFA is a violation of our second amendment right to keep and bear arms. No where does it say “the right to keep and bear arms, except some, which will be heavily restricted.”
Supressors, SBR’s, full autos should all be treated like any other gun. A law abiding citizen should be able to walk into a gun shop, buy his FA, supressed, short barreled rifle, get a back ground check done, and walk out the same day. A supressor, happy switch or shorter barrel doesn’t make the gun any more evil or deadly. It’s already illegal for a felon to own a gun, thus it would still be illegal for a criminal to obtain an automatic weapon, SBR etc.
I don’t see the NFA going anywhere any time soon though. So in the mean time, I’m going to do what every other law abiding gun owner does, set up a trust, jump through the hoops, pay the tax and wait for my stamp. I’m quite gracious that the tax hasn’t been adjusted for inflation. If the tax was adjusted for inflation there would be no way I could afford anything NFA.
I’ve now hit 4 complete months of wait time, from the time I mailed my paperwork, including trust, to ATF. It took them almost a month just to open my registered delivery envelope, and it’s been pending since Jan. 28th. Has the time dropped, or is it just my application?
Following averages on NFA Tracker indicates that wait times have dropped a little (days) for some types of applications, but not much over the last couple of years. It does vary by item and by examiner.
This is the federal government we’re talking about. Good luck getting the process sped up. Our new big-and-ever-expanding government has a lot of new prospective employees waiting in line with you for their background checks. Guess who sits lowest on the investigative totem pole?
Taxes were never meant to forbid something, or make them unaffordable. An attorney needs to challenge the NFA on that basis.
I know Freedom Group is trying to change NFA status of silencers to AOWs so that the transfer taxes would be $5, I believe it’s the NFA Collectors Assn. that is trying to get the Justice Dept to remove the archaic LEO signature requirement.
The whole status of the entire NFA should be examined IIRC the who reason for SBR/SBS regulation was that they ‘Gov’t’ thought that people would be poaching animals during tough times (like the Great Depression).
I’d actually be really happy and consider it a pretty big step in the right direction if we could eliminate the super long waiting period and CLEO signoff.
The biggest thing prohibiting me from purchasing NFA items right now is the cost. Our Sheriff around here is somewhat anti gun, so I’m pretty sure I can forget about a CLEO signoff. That leaves me going the trust route. That means I have to come up with the money to get an attorney make me a trust (I’ve read this is in the $600.00 range) plus $200.00 for the tax on the SBR and then another $200.00 tax for a supressor. This is an extra $1,000.00 total; which is way more than I have in addition to having to buy a barrel, nice lower, engraving the lower, and the cost of the supressor.
If we could eliminate the CLEO signature and change the status of supressors to AOW’s, that would add an additional $205.00 to the rifle, and thats a little more managable for a broke college student or under paid LEO/MIL guy.
I think it’s a little rediculous that it costs more money (in .gov taxes/fees) and time to put a shorter barrel on my rifle than it does to get a concealed weapons permit.
Agree. It was quite a leap from a tax to an outright ban. The work done in 1934 defined particular classes of weapons, and attached specific taxation to each, but none of it was intended to ban anything.
How we made the leap from taxation to an outright prohibition is an interesting (and tragic) study in bureacratic manipulation. The question, of course, is this: would we be content to have the machinegun ban lifted if the associated transfer taxes were simultaneously adjusted for 2011 dollars (i.e. just over $3,300 per weapon).
I think the obvious answer is “yes,” both because it would re-open the registry, and because $3k is still a far cry from the typical $15k or $20k that pass for fair market value for a contemporary M-16.
$3,300 for the right to own a select-fire SR-16 or SCAR-H? I could live with that. Chances are, any clear-thinking legislator could too, if it weren’t for the fact that we no longer are a gun-owning culture at large, and most citizens would be simply appalled by the idea of any repeal. The media would have a field day with this, and I doubt very seriously that we would stand to gain anything from the effort. Still … if only.
Suppressors to the AOW list for tax purposes? Yes – this would be an excellent idea, and one that could potentially gain some traction, if packaged correctly.