Death and nfa

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Watched a forgotten weapons episode on the machine gun amnesty of 1968 and another episode with a nfa authority of a auction house in which it was stated a rather large number of registered nfa items mainly machine guns were still "owned " by people born before 1900. Obviously they are dead, so what happened to those items? I understand before 1986 most nfa item were under 1000 dollars so no real money was tied up so families may not have even worried about those items or even known. Are they hidden or just lost to time?
 
Mine are willed to a friend who I served in the army with. He's a gun-head like me, and won't mind paying a couple of thousand in taxes and transfer fees for what he's getting.
 
Obviously they are dead, so what happened to those items?
There is "attrition" in the registry. Guns get destroyed or lost, and the heirs don't care enough to follow up. This is one reason why there are "illegal" machine guns floating around. The solution is to have periodic amnesties to clean up the registry. The GCA '68 envisioned such amnesties, but the government never carried out one after the initial '68 amnesty. Now, it would be even more difficult to have an amnesty, because of the Hughes Amendment freeze on new guns. A registrant would have to prove that a gun was properly registered prior to May 19, 1986.
 
An amnesty like one in ‘68 would not require a modification of the Hughes Amendment. The Hughes Amendment closes the ability of the atf to receive tax money for machine guns. The amnesty did not require anyone to pay a $200 tax. The tax and potential prosecution were waved.

The problem is any new “amnesty,” would be more like a “gun turn in.” You’d get a $200 Walmart gift card and they’d trash your machine gun.
 
An amnesty like one in ‘68 would not require a modification of the Hughes Amendment. The Hughes Amendment closes the ability of the atf to receive tax money for machine guns.
That's incorrect. 18 USC 922(o) -- the codification of the Hughes Amendment -- reads as follows:

(o)
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.

(2) This subsection does not apply with respect to—
(A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or

(B) any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect [May 19, 1986].

What this means is that unless a machine gun was in the registry at some time before May 19, 1986, it can't be registered or lawfully possessed today, regardless of whether or not a tax is paid. (There are of course exceptions for manufacturers and dealers providing guns to government agencies.)

What an amnesty could do (without repeal of the Hughes Amendment) would be to rectify "chain of title" problems for guns that were properly registered at one time, but that for one reason or another "fell off the radar." The Attorney General could declare such an amnesty pretty much by himself.
 
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