Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Buying a supressor, need advice

I have been reading up on this a little. IMO, it seems that a trust is the way to go. I have read that some lawyers and gunshops are charging up to $1000 to set up the trust. Googleing this, I have found this place will send a kit for $79

$79 link for NFA trust

My questions are, Is setting up a trust so darn difficult? Seems there would just be a blank form you could fill in the names and serial numbers, etc.

I have no legal training so this is new to me.

Whether it's financial advice, or firearms suppressors.......... Derby Dude is your guy.

Quicken Willmaker with living Trust software can be had for about $19.99 from Amazon. When I bought my suppressor, the place I got it from recommended going the trust route. It allows you to transfer ownership to someone without a lot of hassle later thru the trust so is much easier to manage later. Also anyone named on the Trust can be in possession of the Suppressor. You can buy the software and do it yourself. It's a piece of cake. It walks you thru the steps asks you a bunch of questions and you print it out and have it notarized.

Find the suppressor you're going to buy, talk to the suppressor shop you're buying it from and find out how they want your trust provided. They will likely just want a notarized copy sent along and will do the paperwork for you.

I got a buddy's NFA trust that was done by a lawyer and changed the names, etc.

Already have 2 suppressors under it and wanting more.

That is what I am thinking about, otherwise I may do the Quicken thing. I dunno yet.

What's the wait time like now?

I have no idea, sorry

I think a trust may be the best route to take (I didn't), but not real sure about the do-it-yourself ones.

Wait time for approval is the one big reason I don't have a supressor. Used to be about 9 months for the feds. to do there thing.
So you buy a supressor
Turn in your paperwork
wait, wait some more then at some distance time you get to pick up your supressor from the FFL.

Trust

Copy someone's from YOUR state that has successfully used it already.

It's running 6 months right now.

Do it, forget about it, be surprised when you get the call that your stamp is in.

Just stay away from the standard velocity ammo.....

The LLC route is also good and has an added benefit- if you ever want or need to sell, you sell the company and the assets follow. No need for transfer fees or new stamps if the buyer is in the same state.

As I frequently tell my clients, how will you know what you don't know? There is a reason for using an expert, especially where a misstep may constitute a felony.

It is not all that expensive to use one of the lawyers who know what they are doing. (Yes, a gun trust is better than just getting a permit in your own name for several reasons.) Often they can charge competitive rates because of the scale of their activity. I recommend these two, based on my own research on this:

David Goldman at http://www.guntrustlawyer.com/ or

David Hiersekorn at http://privatecounsel.com/

The former is a gun trust specialist in Florida with local contacts all over the US. He does this all the time, offers a lot of free information and gives price quotes online and phone consultations.

David Hiersekorn is a brilliant trust and estate planning lawyer in California with some interesting wrinkles on precautionary language that he includes in the documents.

If I were going to set up a gun trust for myself, even though I am a lawyer, I would use one of these two. It just safer and I think well worth relying on someone to do it for me.

I just found this on David Goldman's site:

August 21, 2014
Nolo Says Don't Create A Gun Trust With Their Products
Today I ran across an entry on Nolo's website addressing the appropriateness of using their living trust software, commonly referred to as Quicken, or Will Maker, to make a Gun Trust. The same issues would exist for Legal Zoom or other standard trust software. Thousands of people and many gun dealers have prepared gun trusts using Nolo's software. The problem is the software was never designed for Gun Trusts and their trust may cause legal problems for their family and friends.
Nolo states:
Can I use a Nolo living trust to make a gun trust?
No. If you want to create a gun trust, get personalized legal advice from an expert on gun laws. Nolo living trusts are designed for the people who simply want to pass on their assets while avoiding probate. Gun trusts are complicated because they:
-- may need to last for more than one generation
-- may have multiple trustees, and
-- must address both state and federal weapons laws.
Nolo's living trusts do not address these issues, and so you should not use Nolo living trusts to transfer weapons. If you want to make a gun trust, get help from a lawyer who has plenty of experience with these trusts and state and federal weapons laws.