I was digging through my grandfathers old cop stuff one day and found this police Billy club /tear gas gun...
I had seen it before when I was a kid but didn't even know I had it until I started going through his old stuff last year and just put it away. Ok so yesterday I decide to let it go and put it on gunbroker for the hell of it. Man my email just about lit up with inquiries.
Thinking that it would definately sell and possibly for big money I started thinking about how I would ship it. Is it a gun? It takes a 12 ga. shell perfectly and is a triggered device, so that makes it a gun. Even though it was designed for tear gas, (Marked Lake Erie Chemical) it was totally capable of firing any 12 ga. ammo if you were a Darwin Award runner up.. So I'm thinking it's a gun and if not a C&R it would have to go FFL - FFL. I called my FFL and he says it's sketchy because if it can fire a shotgun shell and it's only 10" long it's an illegal weapon according to National Firearms Act. So I'm going " now what?". Well I called BATF. I gotta tell you in all my calls to them I have NEVER gotten the help I got today. I was on the phone with them for an hour while he checked to see if it was C&R and all that. Well the short story is that after they sent the info and pics to the VA. office they have concluded that it is in fact an illegal weapon according to the NFA. They will confiscate it and either send it to their museum as they have only ever seen a few of these in 12 ga. or they will destroy it. So an agent will be paying me a vist to pick it up. I'm out the small fortune that it was probably worth, but then I get to keep seeing the world from my own home. The price you pay for honesty I guess.