> For example, here in Austin, TX one of the largest FFLs in the city has stopped selling guns to people on nonimmigrant visas
I'm a resident of Austin, TX who legally purchased a firearm from an FFL while on a nonimmigrant visa, AMA
It was actually a nightmare to figure out if I could even do this legally. Reading the relevant law was incredibly confusing and ambiguous but seemed to suggest it was legal with a valid hunting permit. But I don't want the ATF to shoot my dog, so I consulted with three separate lawyers, who gave me three separate answers: ("probably no", "definitely no", and "legal grey area but the local cops probably think the answer is no so play it safe and don't buy one anyway").
After two years of living here thinking I couldn't legally own a gun, I started talking to a gun shop dude I've been friends with and just asked him. And he said, yeah I can totally sell you one, just need your i94 document and your valid hunting license, and you get an enhanced background check.
One thing that concerned me is that I was reading up on some case law from a while back in, I think Arizona?
It's been a while my details might be rusty, but:
* There was some school shooting that targetted Asians in Arizona
* Asian students freaked out and sought out firearms in order to protect themselves
* Being from Asia, they were on (non-immigrant) student visas, and discovered the hunting permit thing, and got hunting permits to make their firearms legal
* The state parks & wildlife people noticed they issued 2x as many hunting permits as normal, and started investigating
* A bunch of the students were arrested for firearms possession because of some weird technicality where they had hunting permits but they were not obviously using their weapons for hunting, which made it illegal maybe?
I've talked to three FFLs in Austin about this and they all think this is absurd, the law says hunting license, it doesn't make any demands that you go hunting. But this worries me, sometimes
The case was even crazier than that: they bought the AZ resident hunting licenses. But it was later determined that because they were on student visas, they should have bought non-resident hunting licenses. Which made their resident hunting licenses invalid. Which made their gun possession illegal. Afaik they weren't prosecuted under the GCA, but their guns were confiscated.
The first time I got a hunting license in Tx, I picked a non-resident hunting license. However, I have a Texas drivers license, and my primary residence for tax purposes is Texas, and I have spent fewer than 20 days outside of Texas since the start of 2020, so I'm pretty sure I qualify as a resident and have been buying resident hunting permits most recently
I do have a related legal question about the nonimmigrant visa thing. I have never been able to get a straight answer on this
Let's say I am a citizen of another country, say somewhere in Europe where guns are hard to get. If I come to the US as a tourist, I enter the US on a non-immigrant (tourist) visa
If "individuals lawfully admitted to the United States on a non-immigrant visa" (I believe that's the phrase in law) are required to have a hunting permit to _possess_ a firearm.... how do all these foreigners legally _rent_ firearms at ranges?
I know this is a thing that's commonplace. I've been with Europeans visiting for the first time, we've gone to ranges, the ranges have rented them equipment without issue. But a strict reading of the relevant law would suggest that this is a very bad felony. What's going on there?
The _really_ fun one is that there is a category of tourist that do not need to apply for visas before entering (Canadians, eg) and as far as the ATF is concerned, they count as "aliens lawfully admitted to the US _without a visa_" and as such are exempt from the nonimmigrant-visa restriction
The _really_ fun one was that, for the first 8 years I was here, because of a technicality of how I filed for my TN status, I never received a visa document and so legally I was also classified as admitted "without a visa", exempting me from all the laws
The lawyers I spoke to advised me that that would be too much rules lawyering and I might be right, but if the cops ever get involved, they won't understand or believe me, and it will be very expensive to sort out.
So I did it the old fashioned way and got the hunting permit
Essentially, when you apply for a TN you can do it the easy way or the hard way.
The hard way involves mailing paperwork to an INS processing facility and waiting for a response. The response document counts as a "non-immigrant visa" for the purposes of this law.
The easy way, which is only available to Canadians and not Mexicans as far as I know, involves going to cross the border, politely declaring "I would like to apply for TN status", doing the screening right at the customs checkpoint, and getting an i-94 stamp in your passport. The i-94 stamp is the only document you get that shows you're allowed to be in the US.
Because TN is technically classified as a "status" that you are adjudicated to qualify under, instead of a "visa" that you are given, if you enter the easy way, you don't get any paperwork and are legally classified as "lawfully entered without a visa".
I contacted the ATF over this one to make sure I had understood the law correctly. Their answer was quite detailed but, paraphrased, they said: "Yeah, sounds about right with us, just confirm with the State Dept. that you have correctly understood your status".
I was never able to get in touch with the state department, but I did find some documentation confirming that TNs count under the Visa Waiver Program, the same thing that allows tourists from westernized nations to enter without a visa.
All of these laws are stupid and make no sense at all and I doubt anybody actually knows what the law "really" says. That said, I wasn't taking my chances with something like that, not in Texas. "No officer, I'm not an undocumented immigrant, they just didn't give me any documents when I entered" is not a conversation I want to have while accused of illegally possessing firearms 😅
> For example, here in Austin, TX one of the largest FFLs in the city has stopped selling guns to people on nonimmigrant visas
I'm a resident of Austin, TX who legally purchased a firearm from an FFL while on a nonimmigrant visa, AMA
It was actually a nightmare to figure out if I could even do this legally. Reading the relevant law was incredibly confusing and ambiguous but seemed to suggest it was legal with a valid hunting permit. But I don't want the ATF to shoot my dog, so I consulted with three separate lawyers, who gave me three separate answers: ("probably no", "definitely no", and "legal grey area but the local cops probably think the answer is no so play it safe and don't buy one anyway").
After two years of living here thinking I couldn't legally own a gun, I started talking to a gun shop dude I've been friends with and just asked him. And he said, yeah I can totally sell you one, just need your i94 document and your valid hunting license, and you get an enhanced background check.
So that's what I did
It's the most nonsensical part of the GCA, and that's saying something.
One thing that concerned me is that I was reading up on some case law from a while back in, I think Arizona?
It's been a while my details might be rusty, but:
* There was some school shooting that targetted Asians in Arizona
* Asian students freaked out and sought out firearms in order to protect themselves
* Being from Asia, they were on (non-immigrant) student visas, and discovered the hunting permit thing, and got hunting permits to make their firearms legal
* The state parks & wildlife people noticed they issued 2x as many hunting permits as normal, and started investigating
* A bunch of the students were arrested for firearms possession because of some weird technicality where they had hunting permits but they were not obviously using their weapons for hunting, which made it illegal maybe?
I've talked to three FFLs in Austin about this and they all think this is absurd, the law says hunting license, it doesn't make any demands that you go hunting. But this worries me, sometimes
The case was even crazier than that: they bought the AZ resident hunting licenses. But it was later determined that because they were on student visas, they should have bought non-resident hunting licenses. Which made their resident hunting licenses invalid. Which made their gun possession illegal. Afaik they weren't prosecuted under the GCA, but their guns were confiscated.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2017/05/21/feds-seize-guns-8-chinese-students-university-arizona/334920001/
HOLY CRAP, that's even worse.
The first time I got a hunting license in Tx, I picked a non-resident hunting license. However, I have a Texas drivers license, and my primary residence for tax purposes is Texas, and I have spent fewer than 20 days outside of Texas since the start of 2020, so I'm pretty sure I qualify as a resident and have been buying resident hunting permits most recently
I do have a related legal question about the nonimmigrant visa thing. I have never been able to get a straight answer on this
Let's say I am a citizen of another country, say somewhere in Europe where guns are hard to get. If I come to the US as a tourist, I enter the US on a non-immigrant (tourist) visa
If "individuals lawfully admitted to the United States on a non-immigrant visa" (I believe that's the phrase in law) are required to have a hunting permit to _possess_ a firearm.... how do all these foreigners legally _rent_ firearms at ranges?
I know this is a thing that's commonplace. I've been with Europeans visiting for the first time, we've gone to ranges, the ranges have rented them equipment without issue. But a strict reading of the relevant law would suggest that this is a very bad felony. What's going on there?
This isn't legal advice, but yes, a strict reading of the law says that it's illegal for tourists to rent a gun.
https://reason.com/volokh/2019/01/15/many-foreign-tourists-and-most-foreign-s/
The _really_ fun one is that there is a category of tourist that do not need to apply for visas before entering (Canadians, eg) and as far as the ATF is concerned, they count as "aliens lawfully admitted to the US _without a visa_" and as such are exempt from the nonimmigrant-visa restriction
The _really_ fun one was that, for the first 8 years I was here, because of a technicality of how I filed for my TN status, I never received a visa document and so legally I was also classified as admitted "without a visa", exempting me from all the laws
The lawyers I spoke to advised me that that would be too much rules lawyering and I might be right, but if the cops ever get involved, they won't understand or believe me, and it will be very expensive to sort out.
So I did it the old fashioned way and got the hunting permit
Ha wow
Essentially, when you apply for a TN you can do it the easy way or the hard way.
The hard way involves mailing paperwork to an INS processing facility and waiting for a response. The response document counts as a "non-immigrant visa" for the purposes of this law.
The easy way, which is only available to Canadians and not Mexicans as far as I know, involves going to cross the border, politely declaring "I would like to apply for TN status", doing the screening right at the customs checkpoint, and getting an i-94 stamp in your passport. The i-94 stamp is the only document you get that shows you're allowed to be in the US.
Because TN is technically classified as a "status" that you are adjudicated to qualify under, instead of a "visa" that you are given, if you enter the easy way, you don't get any paperwork and are legally classified as "lawfully entered without a visa".
I contacted the ATF over this one to make sure I had understood the law correctly. Their answer was quite detailed but, paraphrased, they said: "Yeah, sounds about right with us, just confirm with the State Dept. that you have correctly understood your status".
I was never able to get in touch with the state department, but I did find some documentation confirming that TNs count under the Visa Waiver Program, the same thing that allows tourists from westernized nations to enter without a visa.
All of these laws are stupid and make no sense at all and I doubt anybody actually knows what the law "really" says. That said, I wasn't taking my chances with something like that, not in Texas. "No officer, I'm not an undocumented immigrant, they just didn't give me any documents when I entered" is not a conversation I want to have while accused of illegally possessing firearms 😅