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View Full Version : Something Interesting from Nov 2009 FFL Newsleter



Bailey Guns
11-22-2010, 12:01
I came across this while looking for something else. This is quoted from the Nov 2009 FFL Newsletter:

Pistol Grips and Shotguns
Firearms with pistol grips attached:

The definition of a shotgun under the GCA, 18 U.S.C.
§ 921(a)(5), is “a weapon designed or redesigned, made or
remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed
or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of
an explosives to fire through a smooth bore either a number
of ball shot or single projectile for each single pull of the trigger.
Under the GCA, 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(29)(A), handgun
means “a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to
be held and fired by the use of a single hand.” Federal law
provides under 18 U.S.C. 922(b)(1), that if the firearm to be
transferred is “other than a rifle or shotgun,” the purchaser
must be 21 years of age or older.

Certain commercially produced firearms do not fall within
the definition of shotgun under the GCA even though
they utilize a shotgun shell for ammunition. For example,
firearms that come equipped with a pistol grip in place of
the buttstock are not shotguns as defined by the GCA.

A firearm with a pistol grip in lieu of the shoulder stock is
not designed to be fired from the shoulder and, therefore,
is not a shotgun. Since it is a firearm “other than a rifle or
shotgun,” the purchaser must be 21 years of age or older.
Additionally, interstate controls apply. The licensee and
transferee must be residents of the same State.

Other questions raised pertain to entries made in the
licensee’s required records with respect to firearm “type.”
These entries should indicate the firearm type as “pistol grip
firearm.”
This basically treats pistol-grip only shotguns the same as rifle frames/receivers or handguns in that the cannot be purchased by someone under the age of 21 and can only be purchased "over the counter" in your state of residence.

I didn't know that.

Irving
11-22-2010, 12:12
Isn't that the same reason you have to be 21 to buy an AR-15 lower now? Since you could build it into a pistol?

SAnd
11-22-2010, 12:35
It also means it's an Any Other Weapon if the barrel is less than 18 inches long. AOW is a $5 transfer not a Short Barrel Shotgun $200 transfer.

So get your local SOT to hack off the barrel of a pistol gripped shotgun and save $195.

You still got to wait for the damn paperwork though.

Irving
11-22-2010, 12:52
It also means it's an Any Other Weapon if the barrel is less than 18 inches long. AOW is a $5 transfer not a Short Barrel Shotgun $200 transfer.

So get your local SOT to hack off the barrel of a pistol gripped shotgun and save $195.

You still got to wait for the damn paperwork though.


ONLY, if the shotgun was never sold with a buttstock, and registered that way from the beginning. Otherwise, it's still an SBS.

Bailey Guns
11-22-2010, 13:02
Isn't that the same reason you have to be 21 to buy an AR-15 lower now? Since you could build it into a pistol?

Correct.

Byte Stryke
11-22-2010, 13:08
Isn't that the same reason you have to be 21 to buy an AR-15 lower now? Since you could build it into a pistol?


Correct.

Unless it is a Complete Lower with a Rifle stock affixed.

SAnd
11-22-2010, 13:27
ONLY, if the shotgun was never sold with a buttstock, and registered that way from the beginning. Otherwise, it's still an SBS.
Good point.
It is a FFL newsletter. I was thinking only factory new as received guns and forgot about other guns.