Amnesty in states that banned machineguns

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kell490

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Someone once told me the 1968 Amnesty period allowed folks to register there machine guns which they might have gotten by illegal manner stolen from the Army or what ever. These people live in states that later banned machine guns, but the Feds because of tax privacy are not allowed to share that information with those states so no one can prosecute them. I wonder they are actually grand fathered in those states that banned them due to the Amnesty given to them.
 
The '68 amnesty was for purposes of federal law only. If the item was illegal under state law (or later became illegal under state law), the fact that it was registered under federal law wouldn't make it legal under state law. The ATF certainly wouldn't approve later transfers that would be in violation of state law. The upshot of all this is that the original '68 registrant would be in possession of contraband, and could be prosecuted by the state authorities if they ever found out about it.
 
I registered an MP40 here in Fla. during the '68 affair. One provision of the registry then was that the Fed's could not share the info with local authorities.....I know for an absolute fact that even in jurisdictions that flatly prohibited the possession of a MG that registrations were accepted by the then ATF.

A close friend of mine was living in N.Y. at that time and had acquired an 08/15 Maxim gun from an old lady that claimed it was her deceased husbands, a WW1 vet, she gave that fully functional piece to my friend at that time who then papered it....he's since changed States twice and far as I know still has that gun.

And yes, if one had a 'souvenir' M/14 or liberated Thompson that holder could in fact register it.........I'd bet that most of the 14's in civilian hands got there precisely so.
 
So even if the firearm was stolen from the military you could register it, and it would become legal to own. These firearms that were brought home I'm sure not all had the blessings of the US military. Your commit about "souvenir" could register it your referring to the amnesty period in 1968? If you missed that period it's basically illegal now. I think when most of the states banned machine guns they had a way to grand father the legal ones.
 
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Yep, the way the format was written specified that one could not be prosecuted for a current or prior violation of law........that apparently included those 'walkedoffwith" brought home AWs. There was also reference to an exclusion to the prohibition in the case of falsified statements tho.

And yeah, I'm referring to the '68 amnesty that came about by virtue of a U.S. Supreme Ct. decision.........the Haynes case wherein the deciding factor was the arguement under the 5th involving self incrimination.

It's kinda remarkable that the USC essentially threw out the NFA '34 act, and then Congress basically repassed the same law with the '68 act!

If you are curious I'll try to dig up my old amnesty registration and quote the section I refer tto.


Far as the State or Local laws go, even if you lawfully hold such a device Federally, you are STILL liable for prosecution under those jurisdictions..............ie my friends case with the Maxim gun.......he got away with it because the State of N.Y. did not know of it's existence. Interestingly, he got called on the interstate transport from N.Y to Fl. by the ATF while living with me, as I recall he produced a C&R license that covered such transportation
 
I would be interested in seeing it. How did you find out about the Amnesty I read somewhere it was only for 1 month. From what I understand is if you didn't get registered though the amnesty then one would have to re-manufacture it by cutting up the receiver and building a new one all this was stopped on 5/1986.
 
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