[MRM]

David, I am not at all sure that the BATF people are right that it is an illegal weapon and must be siezed and forfieted. It may be, but I would not rely on their advice for a number of reasons.

First, the BATF are cops; they are not lawyers and they don't really know how to interpret the law any better than you do. They just look at the statutes, regs, and make their best guess. They don't usually interpret statutes because their lawyers issue guidelines that they follw like a recipe - if you see this, do that, that sort of thing. If they need a real legal opinion they ask the US Attorney assigned to them.

Second, if asked, they are going to be extremely conservative in telling you whether something is legal or illegal. If it is illegal in any circumstance, they will tell you that it is forbidden and they will tell you that you have to surrender it. This may be true on one level, but there are exceptions to every rule and there may very well be exceptions to the rule they are citing that would make it legal to possess in certain circumstances. They probably aren't going to take the time to suss out every permutation of the rule and will stop once they hit the general rule that says "no shotguns under _____ inches can be possessed legally."

And finally, the BATF don't represent your interest; they are not your advocate. I'm not suggesting that they are jack booted thugs who can't wait to take your guns. I just mean that on a personal basis they have an interest in uniform enforcement of simple rules and regs. They don't have the same personal interest in finding a way for you to keep the club/gun that you have, so you can't count on them watching out for your interests the way an advocate working for you would.

So if you do want to keep it, ask a lawyer you know to just look into the deal before you give it up and see if there is some way to save it as a special interest, historical item that can be preserved in private hands. It is a nice piece of history. It would be a shame to see it destroyed. Maybe you can negotiate placement in their museum.