Armory Sponsor
Posted: 12/22/2006 1:56:20 PM EDT
|
The boyfriend of the gal I work with has received a Thompson. From what I understand it's not registered. How would he go about getting this registered? We're in AZ if that makes a difference. I don't know if he got this from a family member or friend. Thanks for the help. |
| If it's a Thompson Machine Gun, and has not already been registered, then it CANNOT be registered. You're holding onto a felony right now. Options are rather limited; chop the receiver and keep the parts, stash it back where it came from and never speak of it again, try and get it into a museum, turn it in. |
| Ky_bob, true I've never seen it but it could be just a semi auto. She said he's asked a Phx PD officer if it was clean. Said the officer ran it through 2 data bases, nothing came up. Also said three officers showed up to check it out. No handcuffs, no go directly to jail card either, must be semi auto. |
Some ATF agent trolling ARFCOM just blew coffee out his nose, all over his monitor. |
If it's a semi-auto version and the barrel is over 16" in length, it probably* is an Auto Ordinance West Hurley semi Thompson and is legally classed the same as a Ruger 10/22 -- no registration is required under federal law. The probably* is because Colt manufactured a handful of Model 1927 Thompsons in the 1920's that were fitted with semi-auto fire-control parts, and were marked "safe" and "semi," but the receivers they used were machine-gun receivers, thus BATF ruled that they were MGs anyway and needed to be registered as well. The last time an existing unregistered MG could be registered in the United States was during the 1968 amnesty. So your coworker's boyfriend missed the deadline by 38 years. 
|
|
Bear in mind that it MIGHT be a full-auto and it MIGHT be registered properly. Since your friend seems to be getting along well with Phoenix's Finest, they might be asked (nicely) if they wouldn't mind sending an inquiry to NFA Branch to see if it's in the Registry. If it's in there, proper transfers MIGHT be done. I mention this because I have personal experience with two cases in which an apparently unregistered MG turned out to be registered. One turned out well, the other no so well. If at all possible, it pays to check, rather than assume. |
Armory Sponsor