SilencerShop is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to silencer sales. They have been doing an amazing job using technology to keep pace with changing regulations and improve the state of the art when it comes to silencer sales, using things like their SID kiosk and online trust generator to make the process much easier than it once was. Now it looks like they have a new idea on how to improve the process further: one trust per regulated item.
Normally NFA item owners would create a single trust to hold all of their items — every silencer, short barreled rifle, and anything else they want to throw in there. One of the benefits is that trust ownership can be shared; you can add your friends so that they too can borrow your toys should they want to go hog hunting with your new gun that you still haven’t killed anything with.
The issue is that when it comes time to buy a new can, at the moment you’d need to round up all the people you’ve added to your trust and have their fingerprints taken along with your own.
SilencerShop thinks that that’s backwards. Rather than having one trust for all of your silencers, have each silencer in its own trust!
Removing several of the cumbersome steps involved with the typical NFA trust setup (e.g., notary, state filing, etc.), our Single Shot Trust arrangement streamlines the process in many ways. Essentially, Silencer Shop is turning the traditional trust on its head! Instead of buying a [more expensive] trust and adding silencers to it as you go, the Single Shot Trust is meant to go along with your silencer purchase and be used only for that single item.
No more gathering up all your trustees, taking a trip to the notary, scanning everyones prints, emailing/faxing the trust back to us, and so forth… All you need to do is digitally sign the document and we will send it to the ATF on your behalf. This simple setup allows you to add trustees and responsible parties after you receive approval, to take advantage of the long-term benefits offered by registering as a trust without the hassles of initial set up.
It’s definitely a different way of thinking about the NFA trust process, and the price they’re offering makes it an attractive option. There’s nothing that says you can only have one person per trust. The issue is going to come in the disposition phase — after your death, ensuring that all the stuff owned by the trusts might get messy if there’s a different legal document for every item you own.