how many transferable machine guns for sale

The number will never increase, unless, with some luck, our community is afforded the opportunity to have additional amnesty periods. As it stands today there are a limited number of machine guns in this country available for the collector, investor or shooter. The moral to this story is a short one but extremely important for the entire NFA community to understand. A simple rule of thumb to always remember: if it was manufactured as a machine gun after May 19, 1986, you can’t own it as a civilian. We settle for the next best thing in a P90S short barreled rifle (SBR), knowing we will never be able to own the real P90.

Hence, this is the reason why you can’t own, as a civilian, an H&K 416 or a P90 or many of the guns that we see in the military. Again, all other guns would be deemed “Post Samples,” none of which could ever be owned by the civilian community. Everything else manufactured before hand was either “transferable,” meaning it had been registered with ATF on the NFRTR prior to May 1986 or it was a Pre 1986 Sales Sample that was designated as such as it could only be owned by Class Three dealers. It was at this point in history where we tagged guns manufactured after May of 1986 as “Post Sample” machine guns. When Congress passed the manufacturing regulations on May 19, 1986, it was determined at this point that future production of machine guns could only be owned by the military, law enforcement or a Class Three dealer with the proper documentation to support the purchase. And yes, that is exactly what happened to nearly 100 guns. Recently, many of you probably heard the incident when a widow called the local ATF office and requested that her late husband’s collection of transferable machine guns be picked up and destroyed.

Unfortunately what has happened over the years since 1986 is that number keeps shrinking every year for a multitude of reasons. It is estimated that on that date there were approximately 250,000 machine guns available to the general public. A transferable gun is any machine gun that was manufactured prior to and was duly registered. What is a transferable machine gun? The answer is relatively simple. We will get into that just a bit later in this session. Interestingly enough that original number gets smaller every year for reasons that just amaze all of us.

The question of how many guns are available for civilian ownership has been asked many times over the years. After an extensive audit of the National Firearms Registry and Transfer Record (NFRTR) by the NFA Branch in November of 2007, that was the number of transferable machine guns determined that were available on the market two and a half years ago. That is the number of transferable machine guns that exist in the United States as of November 2007. NFATCA Report: 182,619 - Is That All There Is?

How many transferable machine guns for sale