One of the most frequently asked questions about firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA), is whether you need a 'Class 3 License' to own silencers/suppressors, short barrel rifles (SBR), short barrel shotguns, AOWs, full auto, etc. A license is only need by a gun dealer or manufacturer who wishes to engage in the commercial sale or production of NFA firearms. That is why you might here a gun dealer or gun maker called an 'FFL'--Federal Firearms Licensee. An FFL must obtain a Class 3 license and pay a Special Occupation Tax (SOT) to deal in NFA firearms.

For ordinary people, an NFA firearm may be transferred or made, subject to state law and federal law, by first obtaining a tax stamp from ATF. The tax stamp is proof the NFA firearm was registered before it was sold or built. To obtain a tax stamp, the applicant must submit ATF Form 5320.4 ('Form 4') or ATF Form 5320.1 ('Form 1') along with a tax payment. The tax is $200 per firearm, but it is only $5 for firearms classified as 'Any other Weapon' ('AOW'). Interestingly, the amount of tax on NFA firearms has never changed--not since 1934.

The easiest and safest way to register NFA firearms in this process is our Arsenal Gun Trust™. It can simplify the tax stamp paperwork, and it can be used to allow other people to have access or possession of NFA firearms. Additionally the Arsenal Gun Trust™ can serve as an estate plan for your entire gun collection so the people inheriting your arms can avoid the court system.

To request an Arsenal Gun Trust™, complete our online questionnaire. 

Arsenal Attorneys™ is perhaps the only law firm offering direct attorney-client relationships for the creation of a gun trust for NFA firearms. We use no middle man, so you know who is responsible for the work. You and your successors will likely have the opportunity to seek our support in the future even if you relocate to another state, which would be an entirely different jurisdiction with its own laws. Not only is the Arsenal Gun Trust™ designed to be portable and valid in other states, subject to local gun laws, but our national law practice could be there just when you need us.

Our law firm provides a variety of other services, including general estate planning, business services, criminal defense, and civil litigation. While we serve a variety of clients, we are renowned for our solutions tailored for the special needs of gun owners and the firearms industry. We represent many new and growing businesses in the firearms industry, including gun ranges and manufacturers. Arsenal Attorneys™ has also served as the general counsel for a presidential campaign. Please consider us when you face a new opportunity to pursue or an emerging problem to solve.

If you're located in metropolitan Washington, DC, watch for details of special events organized by our law firm. Our "Essentials of Self-Defense Law Seminar" is very popular and takes place at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. We also lead the organizing committee of the "National Capital Friends of NRA", whose banquet at Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia raises money for educational programs.

To request more information about our services and upcoming events, review our webiste or use our contact form.

Arsenal Attorneys will be representing our client, DC Gun Range and DC Guns and Ammo, in the opening of a gun range and retail gun shop to be located inside the District of Columbia. The Washington Free Beacon recently reported on these events: 

DC to Get First Range, Gun Store

Facility will be a ‘forum for people to express their right to keep and bear arms’

BY: Stephen Gutowski
May 3, 2016 1:25 pm

The first gun range and gun store within the city limits of Washington, D.C. is scheduled to open within the next year.

DC Gun Range and DC Guns and Ammo will be located under the same roof at a site on Queens Chapel Road in the city’s northeast quadrant. They will be a short distance from the National Arboretum in a neighborhood that features a number of restaurants and nightclubs.

Currently, the city of more than 600,000, which has enacted some of the strictest gun control measures in the country, does not have a single gun store or public shooting range.

Leon Spears, the first and one of the few people certified by the Metro Police Department as a gun carry instructor, is hoping to change that. Spears owns the company developing the range and gun store. Despite hostility to guns from many city officials, Spears said the government has not yet tried to stop his project.

“The government hasn’t really given me any flack,” Spears told the Washington Free Beacon. “It hasn’t been an easy process but it hasn’t been difficult. It’s just tedious.”

The gun range will house 30 shooting lanes, with 24 open to the public on a daily basis and the other six reserved for private instruction. The facility will offer rentals, gun lockers, classrooms for training, a café, an observation area, self-sustaining solar power, private gated parking with special spaces for electric cars, and a lounge area. “It’s going to be more like a club feel,” Spears said. “It’s not going to be … where the average Joe is going to feel uncomfortable, but it’s not going to be a hole in the wall place by any means. I’m just going to try to make DC proud. That’s really the goal.”

Operating a range that’s pleasing to the community is a top priority for Spears. “We’re going to do it up,” he said. “I don’t want people’s expectations to be disappointed. I want people to have pride. This is our range. We don’t have to leave the city anymore.”

Spears said the range will be a one-stop shop for law-abiding gun owners in the District, and will employ as many as 20 people. “We’re going to be a gun store and a range,” Spears said. “There’ll be gun sales, rentals, transfers, and ammo sales. We’re going to be about a 20-employee operation when fully staffed.”

The planned range has already caused some concern among public officials, though. “If two nightclubs make residents uncomfortable, I can’t imagine how a gun range would make people feel,” Walter DeLeon, a neighborhood commissioner whose district includes the planned range site, told the Washington City Paper. The paper also expressed concern that the proposed range would be located near a proposed homeless shelter, which it said might “complicate” the shelter proposal.

Spears said he anticipated opposition to his plan but believes people will come around to it. “I know there will be people that love the concept,” he said. “I know there will be people that hate the concept. I really believe it’s not going to be 50/50. I believe it’ll be 80/20. That’s my expectation in my heart of hearts.”

“Most people will love the idea that it’s providing a forum for people to express their right to keep and bear arms.”

Recently Arsenal Attorneys™ sat down with an ATF officer with 15 years of experience, and we discussed two rumors concerning 41F--the new rules for registering NFA firearms (silencers/suppressors, short barrel rifles, etc.) commencing July 13. Both rumors involve grace periods.

The first rumor concerns whether the fingerprinting and photographs required by 41F will be waived for applications made within 24 months of the applicant's last application to register an NFA firearm. Although ATF announced this policy in its own official statement on 41F published in the Federal Register, they have broken their promise. All new applications to register NFA firearms under 41F, starting July 13, 2016, must include the fingerprints and photographs of each responsible person at the time of the application.  

The second rumor appears to have no basis in fact whatsoever. Our source told us there is a rumor claiming there will be a six-month grace period after July 13 during which ATF will accept applications without fingerprints and photographs. This is false. 

Because of 41F, we recommend you submit applications to register NFA firearms before July 13; however the world will not come to end on that date. The new version of our Arsenal Gun Trust™ will minimize the effects of 41F and allow you to enjoy optimal security and privacy for your gun collection. Therefore our clients will continue to enjoy the opportunity to register new NFA firearms, allow possession by others, and provide an estate plan for their collection. 

To request an Arsenal Gun Trust™, complete our online questionnaire. 

Arsenal Attorneys™ is perhaps the only law firm offering direct attorney-client relationships for the creation of a gun trust for NFA firearms. We use no middle man, so you know who is responsible for the work. You and your successors will likely have the opportunity to seek our support in the future even if you relocate to another state, which would be an entirely different jurisdiction with its own laws. Not only is the Arsenal Gun Trust™ designed to be portable and valid in other states, subject to local gun laws, but our national law practice could be there just when you need us.

Our law firm provides a variety of other services, including general estate planning, business services, criminal defense, and civil litigation. While we serve a variety of clients, we are renowned for our solutions tailored for the special needs of gun owners and the firearms industry. We represent many new and growing businesses in the firearms industry, including gun ranges and manufacturers. Arsenal Attorneys™ has also served as the general counsel for a presidential campaign. Please consider us when you face a new opportunity to pursue or an emerging problem to solve.

If you're located in metropolitan Washington, DC, watch for details of special events organized by our law firm. Our "Essentials of Self-Defense Law Seminar" is very popular and takes place at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. We also lead the organizing committee of the "National Capital Friends of NRA", whose banquet at Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia raises money for educational programs.

To request more information about our services and upcoming events, review our webiste or use our contact form.

Trusts are created based on state law. Generally speaking, a valid trust will be valid in all states. A trust would be interpreted based on the governing law chosen in the trust, which is almost always the law of the state where the trust maker resided when he created the trust. Sometimes a trust maker is required to use his own state's law. In other cases a trust maker can use another state's law. Other state laws might be desirable, particularly to maximize the duration of the trust.    

While a gun trust would be subject to its governing law, local firearms laws must always be obeyed wherever firearms from the trust are located.

Sometimes people ask if they can create a trust in another state to be subject to that state's firearms laws. Regardless of what state law is used to create a trust, a person must always obey the laws, and particulalry firearms laws, in the jurisdiction where they are personally located. Thus a trustee may act on behalf of a trust to obtain NFA firearms like silencers/suppressor or short barrel rifles (SBR), but only where he personally has the legal right to transfer or make those firearms. 

It's important to discuss these issues with a multi-state law practice focusing on these matters. Arsenal Attorneys is perhaps the only law firm offering direct attorney-client relationships for gun trust matters in about 40 states, which means we don't use a middle man. Consequently you will know who is responsible for the legal work performed in creating your NFA gun trust, and you will also know who to contact when you have questions.

You and your successors will likely have the opportunity to seek our support in the future even if you relocate to another state, which would be an entirely different jurisdiction with its own laws. Not only is the Arsenal Gun Trust™ designed to be portable and valid in other states, subject to local gun laws, but our national law practice could be there just when you need us.

Our law firm provides a variety of other services, including general estate planning, business services, criminal defense, and civil litigation. While we serve a variety of clients, we are renowned for our solutions tailored for the special needs of gun owners and the firearms industry. We represent many new and growing businesses in the firearms industry, including gun ranges and manufacturers. Arsenal Attorneys™ has also served as the general counsel for a presidential campaign. Please consider us when you face a new opportunity to pursue or an emerging problem to solve.

If you're located in metropolitan Washington, DC, watch for details of special events organized by our law firm. Our "Essentials of Self-Defense Law Seminar" is very popular and takes place at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. We also lead the organizing committee of the "National Capital Friends of NRA", whose banquet at Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia raises money for educational programs. To request more information about our services and upcoming events, review our webiste or use our contact form.

Recent testimonial from an Arsenal Attorneys client following the delivery of his Arsenal Gun Trust with Turnkey Package:

I have received my E-Mail packet and would like to thank you and your staff for providing such an excellent product. This Trust is everything and more than I expected. You and your firm have certainly lived up to all the great reviews and comments on numerous NFA related forums.  Again, Thank You for the great product. Looking forward to receiving my notary ready product so I may complete my first NFA purchase.

We're grateful for the opportunity to peform this work for our clients. 

Every person concerned with his or her personal safety needs to understand the law of self-defense because unjustified use of force is a crime.  If you're a gun owner, or you want a greater understanding of the law and the legal system, attend Arsenal Attorneys' seminar, "The Essentials of Self-Defense," taking place on Sunday, June 5 at 6pm, at the headquarters of the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Virginia.  

You may register for the course using this link.

We are proud to have this seminar sponsored by our friends at Iron Sight Solutions and F3 Tactical.  Ironsight Solutions are firearms instructors teaching beginning to advanced skills for gun owners.  They offer training to qualify you for concealed carry permits in Virginia and Utah as well as the HR-218 qualification for law enforcement officers.  F3 Tactical is the premier supplier of tactical gear and a hub for the tactical community, professionals and civilians alike.  

Our team of lawyer-instructors from Arsenal Attorneys will include criminal defense attorneys, a former prosecutor, a former law enforcement officer, and a certified firearms instructor.  

The seminar will first present the law of self-defense then illustrate the finer points of the law using real life cases.  The agenda will also include an overview of the criminal justice system so you'll understand the players and the process.  

We'll also answer your questions, and, due to popular demand, we'll provide you insights for determining the possible value of various self-defense insurance or pre-paid legal programs.

This event will take place in the training classroom attached to the NRA Range at NRA Headquarters at 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, Virginia.  Space is limited and advanced registration is required.  

For questions, contact Arsenal Attorneys at 703-291-8838 or register now at this link.

 Register Now