Robert K. Merting - Attorney at Law
Trust Your Guns: A firearms, business, and ITAR knowledgeable law practice
Many times I am asked about how a trust (or the settlor) can change an AR-15 rifle into a legal Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR). The process is easy, albeit long and exact. If your Trust wishes to manufacture a NFA firearm rather than purchase one, it will need to file a Form 1. The Form 1 must Read More …
Yesterday the New York Times ran an article on “Gun Trusts.” As can be imagined, the newspaper described the use of trusts as a ‘legal loophole’ for buying restricted firearms, and attempted to create a ‘need’ to react. Nothing could be further from the truth. Items purchased by a trust are still registered, and the Read More …
Silencers have been catching on with the hunting crowd and articles on their use have made recent appearances in a couple of popular magazines. The National Rifle Associations’ American Hunter and the classic Fur-Fish-Game each carried articles on silencers in the past several months. As all national publications must do out of necessity, the magazine Read More …
The ATF requires all gun trusts to have a ‘Schedule A.’ This is nothing more than a list of assets assigned to the trust. This simple addendum to the trust affirmatively establishes what property, such as NFA firearms, belongs to the trust. Without such an assignment the ownership of a particular firearm might be in Read More …
Many times I have been told that NFA ownership is prohibitively expensive because there is a yearly tax. Fortunately, there is no truth to this myth. The tax for NFA firearms is a one time tax paid only upon the transfer of the firearm. The tax was set to be prohibitively expensive in 1934: $200.00. Read More …