Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 467
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I. Antique firearms
Firearms that are defined by the NFA as “antique firearms” are
not regulated by the NFA. The NFA defines antique firearm in
26 U.S.C. § 5845(g) as “any firearm not designed or redesigned
for using rimfire or conventional center fire ignition with fixed
ammunition and manufactured in or before 1898 (including any
matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition
system or replica thereof, whether actually manufactured before or
after the year 1898) and also any firearm using fixed ammunition
manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer
manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in
the ordinary channels of commercial trade.” Under this statute, and
for NFA purposes, the only firearms that are antiques are firearms
that were both actually manufactured in or before 1898 and ones
for which fixed ammunition is no longer manufactured in the
United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels
of commercial trade.
With this in mind, the ATF states in its NFA handbook that “it is
important to note that a specific type of fixed ammunition that
has been out of production for many years may again become
available due to increasing interest in older firearms. Therefore, the
classification of a specific NFA firearm as an antique can change
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