Mostikely showing my ignorance but what is an SOT?
FOPA?
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Mostikely showing my ignorance but what is an SOT?
FOPA?
This. If the last 25 years have taught us anything, it's that all your gains overtime can be lost by a single overreach. The antigunners screwed up with the idiotic and nonsensical '94 AWB. It went so far that the public, getting more used to the notion of firearms as a right, created backlash. It can just as easily happen the other way if we try to go too far too fast. We lost our rights like a frog in a pan of water that starts to boil. We need to gain them back the same way to avoid a public backlash that reverses all our gains over the last quarter century. Imagine the field day for the Brady bunch when they can say "The NRA wants to make machine guns and grenade launchers into over-the-counter transactions." We need to get the public more acclimated to NFA items before we try to go whole-hog. The current efforts to ease suppressors into the mainstream is a great example of this. Think of it as our camel's nose under the antigunners' tent. Once the public realizes that suppressors aren't the demon assassin tools they've been told about, then we can move on to other things, like SBRs/SBSs and AOWs. It's a far smaller step from SBRs to MGs than it is from Fudd rifles to MGs.
That's why I worry about things like constitutional carry. Yeah, we want to get their eventually, but we should go after the low-hanging fruit first, and gradually get the public acclimated to the notion of gun rights. Cultural shifts don't generally happen overnight. They happen over generations.
Thanks for all the great info... And sorry if this thread strays too far from our typical realm of discussion. It just hit me suddenly while talking to my friend about why MG's are so expensive to own, and he said, "What if I found a cashe burrows on the arm or somewhere with 10,000 of these... What would that do to the market price?"
I was kinda stumped... But figured along the same lines as your responses. I thought the market was pretty well closed at this point. So, I understand that the rifles themselves couldnt registered, but would the sears become available in the market? As a kit, could the sears become registered and transferable? I'm feeling that it's the same boat as the rifles... But am just very curious as to how solid the market is in today's time.
Once again, thanks for the time and consideration!
Bobby
I had the same question about a German MP43. My question wasnt fiction though. I had an old man, physically, show me one he had in his barn. This was 5 years ago, and he died in 2010. I went back to his home a month or so later, and it was gone. I wish it would have been there, it was pristine. I would have jumped on giving it to a museum just to show off that piece of history.
I always wondered if it was possible that it did make it through the amnesty, and he didnt know or remember. Theres no way of knowing now, and thats a shame.
Brandon
Many people refer to Title II firearms (Silencers, SBR, SBS, and Machine Guns) as Class 3 firearms or weapons. The Class 3 terminology is generally used with a dealer license and not a type of weapon but a license. SOT means special occupational tax and refers to the tax due upon transfers of items restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (Generally $200 except for Any Other Weapons, which have a tax of only $5).
If you purchase a Title II firearm from a dealer or individual out of your state, you will need to use a class 3 transfer agent to move the items across state lines. If you purchase from an individual within your state then no transfer agent is required. Interstate and dealer transfers occur on a BATFE Form 3. Intrastate dealer to individual and individual to individual transfers occur on a BATFE Form 4.
FOPA is the Firearms Owner's Protection Act of 1986. It was an overall win for gun owners and federally licensed firearms dealers, but had one prominent amendment authored by anti-gun Senator Hughes (D-N.J.) that made it into the final law that was bad. That was the ban on machine guns registered after May 19, 1986 on the NFA registry for civilian ownership. Any full auto firearm registered after May 19, 1986 may only be possessed by the military, a certified law enforcement agency, or a Class 3 dealer with a "post sample letter" from a LE agency for each firearm. This created a finite supply of legal to possess full auto firearms, which dramatically spiked the prices. In 1985, you could buy a full auto Colt M-16 for less than a thousand dollars. That same gun today will cost you around $15,000, while an LE agency will still only pay around a grand.
This was a controversial amendment, because when it was heard in the House, only a voice vote on it was recorded. When someone requested a recorded vote, presiding cahirman Chales Rangel (D-N.Y) ignored it and moved on. The amendment was subsequently adopted in the Senat version and Ronald Reagan signed it into law.
There's nothing wrong with thinking it so long as you figure out why it is wrong. It is certainly something a normal person considers as they ponder spending 20k on a single firearm. I can't fault anyone for not wanting to take a bath in devalued firearms where your collectible $20k machine gun becomes a used $1k machine gun because the law changed.
It actually takes a special person to "not care" because they can now buy 20 new machine guns for what 1 used to cost. Sadly I think everyones investments are pretty safe.