Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 456
C. Personal defense firearms
A new category of weapon came onto the market in 2017
designed as a personal defense firearm utilizing shotgun rounds.
Mossberg was the first manufacturer to produce such a weapon,
the Shockwave. This market now includes the Remington TAC14 and the Black Aces Tactical Pro Series S Semiautomatic, to
name a few. These firearms have barrels that are shorter than the
18 inches required for a non-NFA shotgun. However, the ATF
has determined that these firearms are not short-barreled shotguns
(because of their “bird’s head” stocks, which are not designed to
be fired from the shoulder). As such, these firearms fall outside
the NFA regulations. See Chapter 5.
D. Machine guns
Machine guns are illegal under federal and state law. However,
if the requirements of the NFA are satisfied, machine guns may
be legally owned by individuals. First, what is a machine gun?
Federal law defines a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is
designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically
more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function
of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver
of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and
exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use
in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination
of parts from which a machine gun can be assembled if such parts
are in the possession or under the control of a person.” See 27
CFR § 478.11. As a result of this definition, the individual metal
components that make up a whole machine gun, such as a full-auto
sear, individually meet the federal definition of a machine gun. The
parts for the machine gun do not have to be assembled in order to
be illegal.
What Is The National Firearms Act? | 445
