Tommorrow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) will formally announce proposals concerning trusts in the registration of firearms regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA). The public will have a 90 day period ending December 9, 2013 to comment on these proposals.  A link to BATFE's announcement in the Federal Register can be found here.

The proposed changes will allow the continued use of trusts for the registration of firearms; however BATFE wishes to require so-called 'responsible persons' of a trust to be subject to the same requirements as non-trust applicants, i.e. fingerprinting, photographs, and a sign off by the the local Chief Law Enforcement Officer (CLEO).

While this proposal would create additional red-tape, the proposed rules would preserve the important benefit of using a trust to allow lawful possession of NFA firearms by appropriately identified and documented individuals. For our clients, this aspect of the Arsenal Gun Trust is crucial in their effort to comply with the law and to keep their firearms safe.  For example, a husband could identify his wife as a 'responsible person' in his trust and therefore provide her the combination to his gun safe without concern of committing an unlawful transfer of the NFA firearms contained inside. Similarly, a soldier could use his Arsenal Gun Trust to ensure no law is broken if his father helps store his firearms during a deployment overseas.

Additionally the Arsenal Gun Trust will continue to be the estate plan of choice for gun owners. Our trust helps clients and their loved ones safely, lawfully, and privately inherit entire gun collections--without a court proceeding or public court record.

Because of the possiblity BATFE could adopt the proposed rules next year or later, we recommend anyone interested in NFA firearms create a trust now and register NFA firerarms now before any changes to the rules might occur.