So you have a braced “pistol.” Welcome to the club. You have a host of options to remain legal. At the same time, you will need to act before the end of May, so you have plenty of time to weigh your options and to watch the court proceedings.
There’s the “I will not comply” option. That’s between you and your maker if you want to go with that option.
There’s ways to remain legal while keeping your options open.
Ways to maintain “legal” status:
1. You can surrender your “braced” gun to law enforcement. That seems foolish.
2. You can destroy it. Strip all the parts off before you destroy the receiver and keep the chopped up parts.
Joe Biden approves of options 1 & 2.
3. Reconfigure the barrel so the rule doesn’t apply. In English, that means replace your sub-16″ barrel with a 16″+ barrel and you’ve got a rifle. Alternatively you can have a flash suppressor “welded” to the barrel bringing the total overall length to over 16 inches. Either of those moves your gun out of what’s now being called a “short-barreled rifle.” Converting a pistol to a rifle is copacetic with F-troop. Converting a rifle to a handgun is worth 10 years in prison.
That works for ARs. For others, like a CZ Scorpion? Not so much.
4. Remove the brace and any mounting hardware from the gun, restoring the firearm to its original configuration. That may be a good option for those who need compliance at the last minute.
There you go.
5. Register the gun as an SBR with the ATF using something called the e-Form 1 online. IMPORTANT: To LEGALLY own a registered SBR in Illinois, you must either be a C&R FFL or a member of a re-enactment association FIRST. The eForm 1 application MUST be initiated within 120 days after January 30th. They ATF is waiving the $200 fee for the tax stamp and I believe that you don’t have to imprint your name and zip code on the receiver. That makes it pretty easy.
To keep your options open, I’d strongly recommend applying for a C&R FFL today. I applied for mine at the end of January and it arrived about three weeks later. The FFL gives me the option of registering with an e-Form 1.
You’ll also need two completed hard-card fingerprint cards for each registered gun. You might go ahead and order some of those as well, and do some research to find some nearby PDs that will do the cards for you. Cost for the cards can range from free (from your small town departments) to $50 for some anti-gun departments. (Or at least departments with anti-gun chiefs).
NOTE: Residents of Cook County will likely face “disapproval” of their applications because of the Cook County ban on black guns. Unless, of course, this gets struck down before the end of May.
For the time being, I’d urge everyone in Illinois to do nothing except get that Curios and Relics FFL license. Wait and see if this gets blocked by the courts before you take the plunge into the National Firearms Act world of “Short-barreled rifles.”
My plan, if nothing changes in terms of court injunctions, is to register / eForm 1 them around the first of May.
For more on how the whole thing may get shot down soon, watch this video from Washington Gun Law.
ATF should be disbanded. We don’t need any stinking bureaucrats making policy on 2A issues. Potato Bribem should be in a secure mental facility, far away from the levers of power.
I did not know about the C&R requirement in Illinois. This seems odd for a modern sporting pistol, since it hardly meets the 50 year old definition of the FFL C&R. I guess SBRs are considered odd or bizarre?
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/curios-relics
Thanks for the info. I don’t personally own any braces or stocks that would make my pistols into SBRs, but I certainly see how this is a nice little trap to turn the unsuspecting into felons. Well done, communists.