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Trust questions


huggytree
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So lets say you have a trust with 100 people on it. You own 1 machine gun. You die. How does anyone know who has possession of the gun? After you die does someone else become the main trustee? What if that 1 person dies who has the gun. His kids take it and dont transfer. It just becomes an unregistered machine gun?

 

How does the ATF not lose track of where these guns are ?

 

How would they even know its lost track of. A person could put a 21 year old on the trust. You could potentially have 100 years on a trust . When do they come looking for what happened to the gun ? Im guessing they dont

Edited by huggytree
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Add to those questions the "what if" of someone challenging the form/wording, and as such the validity, of the trust document. Fortunately, Tennessee had a "will sign" statute long before the rule change. Never considered a trust. Just too easy to transfer them on your death, tax free, as a bequest in your will.

Edited by av8tr
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The successor trustees would have control of the firearm. If no successor is listed it could go to court to appoint one. As far as possession it would have to be a listed trustee or if the trust dissolves, a beneficiary (to whom it would have to transfer to tax paid) to whom the trustee would have to transfer it to. It never becomes unregistered ever, but if the trust dissolves with no trustee to transfer the gun is in limbo and can't be transferred to anyone and would be subject to surrender. Likely that a court would appoint a trustee however to deal with the mess left behind by a poorly constructed trust......which generally describes most of the $.99 gun trusts that have been created. Where there is value such as machine guns something will happen. If there is no value such as suppressor trusts a lot of them will fall between the cracks and there will be a ton of them that become unregistered and contraband in the next 20-30 years as people die with $.99 gun trusts. If you have 100 trustees listed keep in mind any one of them can transfer the gun out of the trust to wherever they want. Keep in mind the legality of a beneficiary (who would not generally be listed as a responsible person) in possession of a MG registered to a trust and not being a trustee is highly questionable IMO. I have a lot of stuff in entities, but possession is limited to two of us. Trust legality varies by state as well and the .99 gun trust is NOT valid in every state.

 

Law enforcement rarely comes looking for anything unless a complaint is filed.

 

As to where the gun actually is, no one really cares since guns are inanimate objects like baseball bats, knives, cars, fertilizer, etc. The goal of society (and should be) is to keep track of criminals and their access which is easily done through incarceration and the threat of severe penalties. Liberals like to waive both of those which leads to mayhem. Much easier to demonize objects instead of enforcing personal responsibility. The concept of allowing voting rights for incarcerated felons and non-resident immigrants is another step in that direction as are "self driving" cars. Getting rid of responsibility is the downfall of every society.

 

If you have a large estate, a trust may be a great option for tax/estate planning. If you are doing it to register a MG it is absolutely worthless with today's NFA process without a CLEO signature needed and may actually create more problems than it's worth. HTH

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i have the $150 silencerco trust on my guns. I took it to a real lawyer who specializes in these gun trusts and he could find nothing in it he would change. I did lots of on line research on a trust lawyer and he came up as the best in the area..i paid for his opinion and he could have made $$$ redoing my trust...he could see nothing to change.

 

i am the trustee on my trusts......i do not have a successor trustee...(not that i know of)....on my 2nd trust i am the only person on it right now...im waiting until i stop buying more :) and i will then add my wife to the trust so she doesnt have to do the mug shot/finger print thing.......that trust will then sit...if i buy MORE i will start a 3rd trust...my goal is to avoid putting my family through mug shots/fingerprints..

 

i still think if you had many people on your trust and you die that the govt. wouldnt know who had the gun or where to go looking...they cant jail 100 people without knowing which one is in possession of the gun.......when im older i plan to borrow my stuff to my kids and pass down a few at a time as i get too old to shoot them...my understanding of the trust is i hand it to them and no paper work is needed?

Edited by huggytree
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I think I'd look for a new lawyer depending on how the trust is set up. If assets go directly to listed beneficiaries on death and you die tomorrow your kids do not get MG's since they are prohibited due to age (I assume they are under 18) That's a problem.

 

On the other hand, again, no one comes looking for your guns unless there is a complaint filed/reported. I've had a MG stolen and ATF does not pursue these cases even though I told them the last known whereabouts of the firearm. I had a friend who had one stolen as well. The process is you report it stolen, they add it to their database, and if it's recovered and called in by another LE agency they will take action then. You have to doggone hope to heck they get the ser. # correct as another friend is trying to get one of his guns back but there is a discrepancy in how the serial # is read in terms of a prefix. So far he hasn't gotten it back and the perp is being held on other stuff but won't be charged with stealing the gun.

 

If they were to go looking they'd start at the transferee's address. If the accompanying form for responsible person does not bear the name of the person in possession, I'd guess something is going to be confiscated first, then maybe sorted out later.....this would be a best case scenario. Worse case, trustee is dead, no secondary trustee to transfer the gun out, no other responsible person listed, high legal fee's to court appoint a new trustee to facilitate further transfers. Trust may or may not exist depending how is written/executed.

 

Most every estate I've seen with MG's is a mess. Discussed one this weekend with a dealer friend who is holding estate guns he purchased and logged in at atf's request, but the executor is sick of dealing with it and will no longer sign any forms. These guns will be cut, but fortunately they are only a couple thousand total.

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my wife is on one of my trusts....she will be on the 2nd one as soon as i stop buying!!!

 

my kids will be on them if they want at age 21...my hope is for the trust to live on through them....if i live long enough to be able to get my grandkids on my trust that would be great....

 

my understanding is anyone on the trust can possess the guns.....my question is all about what if whoever has the gun wants to keep it and who will know who has what...what if every person on the trust says they dont have it, but one of them secretly does....as the trustee am i supposed to write down when one of my kids or grandkids takes a gun out to shoot for the weekend? or i give one of them away for good to a child of mine?

 

i realize this is not a legal forum.....i was just thinking about the hornets nest a trust can be.....im all good, but this issue has to come up occasionally.....some people arent honest.....these guns are valuable....someone may want to keep one from the other trustees and pass it down to his kids in secret....i just see more guns dissapearing off the registry with the trusts...or in 100 years someone wants to transfer it legally after they find it in an attic....but then this happens right now

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