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NFA gun trusts are one of the most popular ways to buy suppressors and other NFA items, as well as to make them on an ATF Form 1. An NFA gun trust offers unique legal benefits and efficiency. However, like with many legal documents, people sometimes get confused about NFA gun trusts, so we are going to take the mystery out of them and lay it out in a simple fashion.
A trust is a legal document and tool for holding and transferring assets. Because NFA items have to be registered to a legal entity, many people choose to put them into a trust for various reasons. With a trust for a suppressor, you place the silencer into the trust, and then whomever is listed as part of the trust can legally use and own it. This is great for families who want to share in the suppressor, maybe for things like traveling to hunt, or moving across the country. A trust differs from individual filing in that it gives you added flexibility with how you use your suppressor.
At one time a trust was a common workaround for a now-obsolete rule. That rule required a local chief of police or sheriff to sign off on an application to make or buy an NFA item. Without that signature, the ATF would not approve the NFA item. However, such signoff was not required for a trust or corporation, and NFA trusts were sometimes the only way to acquire NFA devices. Luckily this rule is now obsolete and the ATF no longer requires local law enforcement approval to acquire NFA items. So why should you still use an NFA gun trust? Well, that’s a good question...
Of course, the easiest way to go about this is to contact us and get started with your NFA trust and suppressor purchase. Have questions? Contact the experts!
There are basically three approaches for NFA gun trusts - Free is the best, and low cost is an option if you need to do so after the purchase. If you encounter the third option, a high-cost trust, run away.
Unscrupulous people will sell a trust for many hundreds of dollars by preying on the fearful and uninformed. There is simply no reason to give in to such marketing when the first two options are available for any American and any competent attorney can write one up for a fraction of the cost.
In reality, there are two practical ways and one impractical way to get an NFA trust. If you plan to just use a Form 1 and make your own NFA items or your NFA dealer doesn’t offer a free trust, buying a ready made one makes a lot of sense.
Otherwise, if you are buying a silencer or other NFA item from Silencer Central or somebody else who offers a free NFA gun trust, by all means take advantage of that! But avoid people selling trusts who use scare tactics and slick talk to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a trust.
Two simple words explain why you should get an NFA gun trust: estate planning. Oh, there are other ones we’ll get to in a moment, but this is the biggest.
You see, the nature of NFA items can make them difficult for your heirs to deal with. However, a trust allows near seamless transfer of ownership and registration to your heirs after your death. No other tool exists for such easy transfer of NFA items. This is why you need to do some serious thinking before you choose between a trust or an individual filing option. But of course there are more reasons.
NFA gun trusts are also a great way to allow family and close friends access to your NFA items. NFA trusts for suppressors are especially popular for this reason. You can put multiple people on a trust, which legally allows them to use an NFA item like a suppressor without you being physically present. In other words, if you want to let somebody borrow your suppressor and take it hunting, you can do that by putting them on your trust.
This doesn’t impact estate planning, as many people can be on a trust, but only one can be designated to take ownership after death. So as you can see, there are a lot of advantages to NFA trusts, from estate planning, to faster processing, to allowing family and friends access to your NFA items.
Trusts are interesting documents. At their core they are legal concepts that vary from state to state. Each state has different trust law, and trusts have to be written to comply with those laws and be satisfactory to the ATF. That means the first time you draft one, you are probably paying a lawyer for a few hours of time.
Now it’s true there’s a good bit of boilerplate that goes into a trust. Still, it has to be customized the first time around. After a generic NFA gun trust is written, then the language can be used again and again by anyone in that state.
This means two things. First, creating a trust can cost up to a few hundred dollars in lawyer time. And after that, the created trust can be copied and sold to many different people. And here is where things get interesting…
Most NFA gun trusts are designed to accommodate multiple items and multiple trustees. That’s why drafting one from scratch can be expensive. However, when the ATF implemented a new rule in 2017, things got both more complex and more simple for owners of NFA items.
You see, trusts can allow the addition or removal of trustees on the fly. You literally can pencil or erase trustees. However, the ATF now requires ALL trustees for NFA items to submit fingerprints and photo identification information. That makes it harder to add trustees. And adds another layer of annoyance to the already annoying world of NFA item ownership.
To use a clickbait phrase, there is one weird trick discovered by a lawyer in their garage that the ATF hates. (Well, not really, it’s just a neat loophole). You see, if you have ONE trust with MANY NFA items on it, you have to do the whole fingerprint/photo ID thing for each and every trustee.
If you have ONE trust for EACH DIFFERENT NFA item you have. Yyou can add and remove trustees as you wish without additional ATF oversight. Weird, isn’t it?
Weird but legal, and that’s all we care about. Sure, they are a pain if you own more than one NFA item. So is submitting identifying information for all your family and friends that you want to have access to an NFA item. Only you can decide which route is best for you.
An NFA gun trust form is just another fancy way of saying “NFA gun trust.” You need to get a trust through one of the prior mentioned means in order to get your trust setup. Then you can proceed with using it to buy or build whatever NFA items you can afford and get approved by the ATF.
NFA trusts for suppressors are very popular for two reasons. One, you have to register suppressors, and trusts are more efficient for NFA item ownership than any other form of registration.
Second, there are a lot of semi-finished suppressor kits on the market right now that exist in a legal gray area. Sure, we’d prefer to sell you one of our suppressors but some folks really like the DIY approach.
A lot of folks opt to use an ATF Form 1 and their NFA gun trust to build a suppressor at home. They do this either using the “solvent trap” kits or, if they are skilled enough, machining one themselves. Because an e-filed Form 1 is currently taking about two months to approve, NFA gun trusts are quite popular for suppressors.
Silencer Central is your single best choice for buying a suppressor. We offer many advantages no other silencer dealer can. Here are a few examples:
Gun trusts don’t have to be confusing or expensive. No matter if you buy one from a reputable law firm specializing in firearms law, have one custom drafted for you, or take advantage of Silencer Central’s absolutely free gun trust, they are the number one way to register NFA items with the ATF, to make your own NFA items, and to protect your estate’s assets.
About setting up your trust
While individual filing is slightly faster to get approved from the ATF, the difference in time is dramatically reduced. Lately we've been seeing approvals on trusts averaging a few days longer than individual, and that's not a long time to wait when you get the flexibility of a trust.
It depends. You can set up a trust at anytime, but if it is after you've already been approved as an individual, you will have to refile a new Form 4473. Additionally, you will likely have to pay for a lawyer to set up the trust. We make it easy and free at the time of purchase.
Yes, you can. With a trust, you have control to add or remove people from the trust at any time. The new trustees will need to go through the same process as others, but the process is not as daunting as you might think. You have control.
Yes, you can will your suppressor to an heir. However, that person will need to file a new Form 4473. They can legally possess the suppressor, during that time. If the suppressor goes into probate, the presiding judge may want the suppressor to be held by the court until the new Federal stamp is issued.
