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What if you found a Thompson.......
Rembrandt
Member Posts: 4,486 ✭✭
Pure hypothetical senario....let's say you buy an old house at an estate sale, the same family owned it for more than 90 years. While doing renovations you discover a Thompson sub machine gun in a violin case hidden in a crawl space...[:D]...now what do you do?
Comments
Seriously though, I probably wouldn't say a damn thing to nobody and hide it. Rather than it be destroyed or stolen by some ATF agent and lose a piece of history.
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
81st FA BN WWII...Thanks Dad
U!S!A! ALL THE WAY!!
Greg
To Ride, shoot straight,and speak the truth
This was the Ancient law of Youth
Old times are past, old times are done:
But the Law runs true, O little son!
If "Mr. Smith", the owner of the Thompson is still alive and kicking then you have to return Thompson to him. If he is dead and has a family then they of course inherit the gun and the transfer is NFA Tax free on a Form 5. Since a Thompson can easily be worth $10,000 and up, someone related to "Mr. Smith" will probably want the gun for themseleves and not be at all eager to simply give it to you! If the gun was never registered it cannot be registered now and must be surrendered to the BATFE-- There is ZERO recourse in this, although you may be able to hand over just the receiver and keep the parts as a kit, the BATFE field agent will make that determination. LOTS of hypothetical postings this weekend!
Mark T. Christian
Gun control is a steady hand
In the early 1960's the ATTU began a policy of "Once a machinegun, always a machinegun" because WAY too many people were reactivating these DEWATS and not bothering to pay the $200 NFA Tax and the DEWAT program was closed. Then current DEWATS were grandfathered as non firearms if they remained unmodified. The Gun Control Act of 1968 gave the ATTU "Once a machingun..." policy the force of law and DEWATS were no longer exempt. They were now considered to be actual firearms and needed to be registered during the 1968 ammnesty-- although no NFA Tax was payable since the firearms were not functional. If the firearm in question was legally registered at that time it can be reactivated as a functional machinegun at any time by simply paying the $200 NFA Tax. The Sec. of the Treasury has the authority under the GCA-68 to have ammnesties as often as he wishes; so far there has been only one-- the first one!
Mark T. Christian
and the part about Pa's boxers,ALL OF THE ABOVE!![:D][:D][:D][:p][:p]
IT'S WHAT PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES THAT MAKES THEM AFRAID.
Gun control is a steady hand
I saw what appeared to be a full auto .45 grease gun sell at a farm auction yesterday. The auctioneer said he was just selling personal property, and what you did with it wasn't any of his business. The first guy that bought it got cold feet and had it auctioned off again. It brought $400.00. There were probably 400 people at that sale, who knows who may have been there? Besides the buyers name is recorded.[B)]
....................
Old? First you forget names; then you forget faces; then you forget to pull your zipper up; then you forget to pull your zipper down.
"I know Everything because
my Wife is a Hair Stylist"
I am always amazed at the knowlege and information GB members have. Mark, Kimber, and everyone else....thanks for the wealth of information, should the day ever come that we cross paths, it would be my privilege to buy any of you dinner just to hear more. Appreciate it very much.
anyhoo...
Ever heard of the drug-runner boat that was siezed and later sold at auction only to be found by it's new owner to contain a stash of Thompson SMG's in hidden compartments? I read this story somewhere within the last few years.
I've never intentionally violated any firearms laws (there are so stinking many) but who knows? I may or may not have hypothetically passed through the city of Chicago a few years back when moving from the east coast to the midwest and I may or may not have had a large container full of rifles, shotguns and handguns when I did so. I hypothetically might have thought that I hypothetically would have been protected under Title 18 of the United States Code but who knows? It never happened so I'll only wonder.
In the case of such a "discovery" I'd probably wrestle with it for awhile and then make the gun "go away" via various networks and such. My perspective is a little bit different though. Granted, a soldier must always obey the laws of the host nation when overseas ESPECIALLY when there is no Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in place yet. I found myself in such a situation. However, Marshall Law was instituted during a time of national crisis while I was there. You better believe I had local contacts for the local acquisition of potentially-needed tools of self-preservation should things have gone sour. I have no SHTF tools of self-preservation set aside or cached away. This would be a tempting piece if the opportunity presented itself. Then again, I'd probably just bend to the law of the land. It's a tough call.
Packing grease, a couple of cases of ammo, a few very very HEAVY duty plastic bags, national forest/park land, a shovel....you get the picture? Then an "exact" set of GPS coordinates left in my will, in case I do not get to play with it before "the inevitable" happens to me. Only the wife/kids (MAYBE??? a good friend) would know what the coordinates were for.
The gene pool needs chlorine.
with her blessing. Thats the last time I ask what is in something while someone else can hear me.[V]
col elect1mike Illinois
volinters RRG
O give me a home where no democrats roam
As for music lessons... I'd defer. Neighbors will think you're disturbing the peace.
Seriously - A hard call to make. A piece of history that will be destroyed or stolen by the same folks you turn it in to. At the same time a machinegun that can't be used for any purpose whatsoever.
Keep it and you're a felon (if you know you have it). I'd leave it as an old violin somewhere in the attic. Never having opened the case, I'd assume it was nothing but an old instrument.
Nord
1866,s to modern levers model 24's as well as model 12's in all he had a total of 96 guns I ask if she was selling them and she said it was up to her brother I told her if he does sell them to call me so I could maybe buy some. I really would have loved to have a gun he owned us being friends. Well I see her about a month later and she tells me her brother sold the whole lot to one of the guys that was there when she showed me them. She said we got a real good deal on them her brother sold the lot for 10, 000 dollars. Hell the 1866 was worth 10,000 by its self. I didn't have the heart to tell her her family had been took. I saw some of the guns at the next big gun show and a dealer who is famous for taking people was bragging to another dealer how he had fleest this guy out of them. I hope to hit a home run just one time but I won't take someone to do it.
col elect1mike Illinois
volinters RRG
O give me a home where no democrats roam
As to the M1866, etc., this was not a home run - it was a theft. Perhaps not legally, but certainly morally / ethically. There was a dealer in this area (actually his wife) who made it a practice to come calling within 24 hours of the funeral when she knew some elderly woman lost a husband who had firearms. Eventually, the pair ended up closing up their shop / moving to a different area of the country because the local market wouldn't do business with them and they didn't have enough volume from their exploitive efforts to sustain the operation. I've always rather hoped they ended up eating dog food under a bridge.
SEMPER FI