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Before everyone gets too excited, this story has been floating around the interwebs:
The answer, unfortunately, is NO.
Here is the ATF's interpretation of trusts:
ATF's interpretation of what a trust is comports with mine. NFA is something of an aberration. Normally, a trust is just a kind of contract, and agreement between two or more people. Many laws (mostly tax, some estate/family) give some sort of special treatment to trusts. NFA is one. Apparently, GCA is not. So the GCA treats trusts like any ordinary contract, which is to say, it doesn't care about them at all. So a "person" (an individual) is still restricted by the GCA, irrespective of any trusts. So if a "person" were to violate the GCA, a trust would not be a shield to liability.
In other words, if you go and build a machine gun, you have broken federal law, and the ATF rightly will not care about whatever sort of trust you have created. ATF didn't screw up, and as far as I can tell nothing has changed. Certainly nothing has changed for the better. So ATF will rightly reject any Form 1 you submit under this "theory."
The answer, unfortunately, is NO.
Here is the ATF's interpretation of trusts:
ATF's interpretation of what a trust is comports with mine. NFA is something of an aberration. Normally, a trust is just a kind of contract, and agreement between two or more people. Many laws (mostly tax, some estate/family) give some sort of special treatment to trusts. NFA is one. Apparently, GCA is not. So the GCA treats trusts like any ordinary contract, which is to say, it doesn't care about them at all. So a "person" (an individual) is still restricted by the GCA, irrespective of any trusts. So if a "person" were to violate the GCA, a trust would not be a shield to liability.
In other words, if you go and build a machine gun, you have broken federal law, and the ATF rightly will not care about whatever sort of trust you have created. ATF didn't screw up, and as far as I can tell nothing has changed. Certainly nothing has changed for the better. So ATF will rightly reject any Form 1 you submit under this "theory."
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