Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends,
Many of our firm’s clients are avid gun collectors and shooting enthusiasts, and are very concerned about the new and proposed restricted gun laws and their draconian penalties. These folks are law abiding people who enjoy recreational shooting and collecting weapons, some of which have made the list of restricted weapons, and whose ownership or sale is restricted under state and Federal law. The Gun Trust is the right vehicle for these people and others similarly situated as a lawful way to bypass the need to obtain approval or even undergo criminal background checks.
Gun Trusts were created to allow the owners of firearms to share them legally with other family members and to legally pass them at death. The Gun Trust also offers protection from future laws that may prohibit the possession or sale of these firearms. Under current law (which could change), buying firearms that are currently restricted, or may become so in the future, through a Gun Trust, exempts the trust’s beneficiaries from the requirements that apply to individual buyers, including being fingerprinted, undergoing a background check, and seeking approval of a local law enforcement chief.
The Gun Trust has many benefits such as ensuring that the family’s firearms are passed on responsibly when the owner dies, keeping them from falling into the wrong hands in a divorce or lawsuit judgment, or changes in other states whose gun laws may be more restricted. If the beneficiaries are not ready to own the weapons, the Gun Trust may restrict their use and require gun education before the beneficiaries qualify to have access. If local law enforcement officials refuse to sign off on the purchase of restricted firearms, the Gun Trust will serve as a useful tool.
So, if you own firearms and worry about the law continuing to become more restricted, including how these assets are passed on to your family members, consider a Gun Trust before this “loophole” is changed.
Future issues of CLIENT ALERT will feature the newest thinking in trust design and planning where the estate planning and psychotherapy communities intersect with new bodies of work revealing sea changes in the way we should think about leaving our wealth to our children and grandchildren. These important trusts are designed to provide effective incentives and training to educate teenage and adult beneficiaries on financial and business skills, using The Incentive Trust, The Financial Skills Trust, and The Business Skills Trust.