The great thing about the Internet is that it allows you to buy pretty much anything: food, memorabilia, sexually explicit videos, military-grade weapons–wait, what?
Second Amendment enthusiasts can exercise their right to bear arms on ArmsList, a Craigslist-like classified advertisement site boasting buyers and sellers of artilleries such as machine guns, tanks, and grenade launchers. According to the Daily Dot, the site insists that it is just the middle man and explicitly states their lack of involvement in transactions in the footer. And, yes, it’s all legal if you go by what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms says.
So if your dream is to own a fully operational tank, today is your lucky day. There’s one on sale right now for a quarter million dollars. “If they’re operational, you can register those actual cannons [as an NFA weapon],” ATF spokesman Russ Morrison told the Daily Dot. “And if they’re sold, they’d have to go through a transfer to make sure everything’s OK, and have it registered, as well.”
But how does this process work?
“As far as registering NFA, you’d have to get the sheriff to sign off on it as well,” Morrison said. “There’s going to be some background done. You’ve got to assure they’re not prohibited [from lawfully owning a firearm] in the first place. There’s some type of control that’s involved when somebody wants to purchase something like this.”
Sleep soundly, worried minds. If this process is in any way similar to what it’s like to purchase a non-military gun, we’re in safe hands.
