Machine guns may no longer be registered to trusts in Virginia

[jason8844]

More NFA news from Virginia. It looks like trusts in Virginia are no longer allowed to register MGs according to the Attorney General.

http://www.oag.state.va.us/Opinions%20and%20Legal%20Resources/Opinions/2013opns/13-083%20Flaherty.pdf

[sillycon]

Not too good. This appears to be another example of a letter writer making a mess for everyone else. A few years ago (2), however, there didn't seem to be an issue with registering as a trust. I know this because I did it when I traveled up there with my MG's on a F20.

I also have to wonder what happens with all of the trusts currently in VA that were previously registered. Are they now going to be grandfathered (which, under his interpretation would seem impossible), or found invalid thus putting many in a position of illegal possession? Since they have the "illegal" registrations on file with the state anyhow, it would be a "trivial" task to round up all the guns and "criminals".

Not a good situation for anyone!

[ExecDirector]

This situation is actually about as clear as mud. Many, if not most, folks who have transferred a machine gun into a trust on the federal application have actually registered the machine gun as an individual at the Virginia state level and this appears to be acceptable. We are endeavoring to get more information on the situation.

[sillycon]

I'm very eager to find out more as we have successor trustees in our trust who reside in Virginia...

[jason8844]

Looks like a bill is about to be filed to clarify this issue....

https://www.arsenalattorneys.com/machine-guns

[ExecDirector]

Looks like a very cogent approach.