After strong encouragement from a fellow attorney, repeated inquiries from Utah gun owners, and driven by the concerns I have about the hidden legal traps in the law relating to machine guns, silencers and other “destructive devices,” I have decided to begin drafting “Gun Trusts” or “NFA Trusts” as they are sometimes referred to.

I have been somewhat reluctant to get involved in doing these because I am a trial lawyer, first and foremost, and trusts are often associated with estate planning which I do not delve into, mainly because of the tax implications. However, I have been working with trust attorneys for years because trusts are often used to protect assets after personal injury settlements. Furthermore, as a trial lawyer who has worked in cases involving the National Firearms Act, I am anxious to help clients avoid the hidden legal traps in that area of law as well as any other state or federal code sections.

Drafting NRA or Gun Trusts will allow me to share information about the traps lurking in this area of law as well as equip gun owners to have more flexibility in sharing “big boy toys” with their family members. These trusts also provide a vehicle to transfer these highly regulated toys to their family members after the purchaser goes to “The Happy Hunting Grounds” (dies) without family members going through a legal nightmare.

My trusts will be limited to basic gun/NFA only and I do not intend to branch out into the area of estate and tax planning at this time.

For those of you who have been tempted to draft your own trusts from forms obtained from the internet may be surprised to learn that Utah has a Uniform Trust Code that uses different terminology than many states. I suspect that I will find as many misconceptions about Gun/NFA trusts as I’ve found teaching the law of self-defense and other gun laws. It has gotten to the point where inaccurate information about legal matters could result in disastrous legal charges, particularly with respect to these trusts and the possession of machine guns and destructive devices where the federal penalties are so outrageous and no process exists for cleansing one’s criminal record short of a presidential pardon.