ATF 41P Ruling Response

Aaron Spuler is a firearms enthusiast and recreational shooter. Follow more or his work at The Weapon Blog

After reviewing the almost ten thousand comments from loyal Second Amendment supporters such as yourself, the ATF came back with answers to those comments and a ruling on 41P. The ruling weighs in at 248 pages. In the interest of providing you with the information you need without having to spend hours reading it yourself, we have provided a summary below:

• We will not see any changes take effect until 180 days after the official ruling has been published in the Federal Register. The ruling has not been published at this point.
• This ruling is not retroactive and will not apply to applications that are in pending status, or to previously approved applications for existing legal entities and trusts holding NFA items. Anything that is in process before the effective date will be grandfathered under the current rules (Page 198).
• Once the final ruling goes into effect, the CLEO certification rule will change to simply CLEO notification for all silencer purchases – whether through a trust, LLC, or as an individual.
• Once the ruling goes into effect, the responsible persons in a trust or LLC must have a background check completed which will require fingerprinting and photographs, much like when an individual purchases a silencer today.
• The ruling provides a clear answer in regards to what happens when a person or entity that owns a trust dies. The person who is authorized to dispose of the property of an estate may possess a firearm or other item (such as a silencer) that is registered to a decedent during the term of probate without such possession being treated as a transfer under the NFA. Also, any transfer of the NFA item to any beneficiary of the estate is tax exempt.

Bottom line: Once this ruling is officially published, things will continue as they are for 180 days – so don’t wait any longer to get your trust and silencer(s) – paperwork in process at the end of the 180 days will be grandfathered.

As always, we will keep you up-to-date with any new information as soon as it becomes available to us.

2015 was the best year ever for SilencerCo, and we look forward to continuing to lead the silencer market.

If you’d like to review the entire ruling, it is available for download at https://www.atf.gov/file/100896/download