Seeing gun owners try to explain to other people the laws around machine guns is painful, especially when they get terminology wrong. Let us go over briefly some terms.
The Federal Firearms Licensee
There are a lot of different types of FFLs. Let us review:
Type 1 – Dealer in Firearms (but not destructive devices)
Type 2 – Pawnbroker
Type 3 – Collector of Curious and Relics. I lot of you have this one, and so do I.
Type 6 – Ammo manufacturer
Type 7 – Firearms manufacturer (but not destructive devices)
Type 8 – Importer of firearms (but not destructive devices)
Type 9 – Dealer in destructive devices
Type 10 – Manufacturer of destructive devices.
Type 11 – Importer of destructive devices.
The Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT)
You’ll often hear people refer to “Class 3 firearms” Ain’t no such thing as a class 3 firearm. Classes are Special Occupational Taxpayers. This is the license that allows an FFL to deal in NFA items.
Class 1 SOT – Importer of NFA firearms.
Class 2 SOT – Manufacturer and dealer of NFA firearms.
Class 3 SOT – Dealer of NFA firearms.
Title I and Title II
This refers to Title I and Title II of the Gun Control Act of 1968. This is how to categorize a firearm. Machine guns are Title II firearms. Rifles, shotguns and handguns are Title I firearms. Silencers are Title II items, but we’re trying to move them to Title I. The National Firearms Act regulates machine guns. It is part of the Internal Revenue Code. It was a 1986 Amendment to the Gun Control Act that banned any new machine guns from being registered to non-government entities, 18 U.S.C. 922(o). If you’re in possession of a Title I firearm illegally converted to a machine gun, you’ll be charged with violating 922(o), not violating the NFA. The government can’t prosecute you for failing to pay a tax it refuses to collect.
Where does the Second Amendment authorize ANY of that crap? It’s all infringement!
It’s the part in the fine print where certain terms and conditions apply, not available in all areas, subject to withdrawal without notice, no returns, no exchanges, no warranty.
Good summarization of the terms. Bookmarking for future reference.
Exactly right.
Here’s all the Dems need to know this time around… Ready?
bump fire stock (plastic piece) != machine gun
The confusion is understandable. That’s part of the reason this whole issue of gun control is so damnably frustrating.
I wish the freaking “professional journalists” who make up the core political support for American gun-control, had an appreciation for this legal minefield. Imagine if you will that the color of copy toner for their printers may or may not be a felony crime, all depending on which side of the State line it was purchased at. Or a 10 day waiting period and background check fee before publishing a new story.
Title I and Title II, being GCA ’68 terms, are not NFA terms. The title of the post is a little bit misleading then. The journalists will still not know anything, even if they’re forced to read this. You would need to distinguish the NFA of ’34 from GCA ’68, from FOPA ’86 more clearly, while explaining some the primarily racist roots (from Democrats) of gun restrictions in general.
The main problem of course is that most of the leftist ignoracracy* doesn’t want to know, and if they knew they’d not admit it. Those who’ve known all along will never want the truth of the matter to be widely disseminated.
The fact is that anyone who cared would have already taken the time to learn the details about an issue that is so hotly debated in American society. That they don’t know is therefore proof that they don’t want to know, or that they do know and are being willfully deceptive.
They know for example that an “assault weapon” is not an assault rifle, and exploit what they hope is public ignorance on the matter, all the while clouding, confusing and distracting from the fundamental issues of human rights verses their goal of a monopoly on deadly force.
*Ignoracracy: rule of the ignorant, by the ignorant. A counter-society, or cult, within a government, in which truth is an enemy of the state.