I am expecting to get some flack for this but I have my kevlar securely in place and have found adequate cover.  For Museums in the People's Republic of Washington D.C. you need to be aware that this city has some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States.  I would
think that there is some exception for Museums but I am not sure.  What you should not do is contact local law enforcement as they may try talking you into registering all your firearms when their may be no requirement for a museum to register firearms.  The first thing I would do,
since you are in D.C., is contact the Smithsonian Institution and see how they handle their firearms.  Since you are a military museum you may have fully automatic weapons  or "destructive devices" i.e. machine guns, live grenades or live artillery shells in your collection and
there is a requirement for such items to be registered.  If you have machine guns, I would have a gunsmith (preferably a class III federal firearms dealer who can legally sell machine guns) check to see if any are deactivated war trophies.  These are guns that were brought back as
souvenirs from various wars but had to be made inoperable before entering the U.S.  I think this started with World War II and may only have applied to machine guns. I do not think that deactivated firearms need to be registered, but again you will have to check with both federal
and local laws.   Be warned that there has been a ban on the manufacturing of machine guns in this country since 1986 and they are very valuable so a dealer may attempt to buy some of the rarer ones from you.

   If you have operational machine guns they must be registered with the Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (anybody got chips) which is part of the Treasury Department. This require came about as part of the first Federal gun control Law in 1934.  It would be helpful to
contact BAT F and explain to them that you are a museum an simply wish to comply with federal regulations.

    I would also check with web site of the National Rifle Association ( you can stop the catcalls and hissing now) at nra.org,  click on the NRA ILA icon and then click in the Firearms Laws icon on the left side.  a screen should come up that will give you breif over view of
firearms laws for your state and the  D.C. area.  I hope this information helps.

"Feltus, Pamela" wrote:

> We are currently reviewing our collections practices and there were some
> questions on gun collections-- especially in terms of special legal
> requirements, registering with police, security, storage, etc. Does anyone
> have any general advice on these collections or knowledge of resources.
> Please feel free to respond off-list.
>
> In advance, thank you
>
> Pamela Feltus
> Curator
> National Museum of American Jewish Military History
> Washington, DC
>
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--
Michael Wright
Curator of Collections
Old Capitol Museum
PO Box 571
Jackson, MS 39205-0571
Telephone: 601-359-6929
Facsimile: 601-359-6981
Email: [log in to unmask]

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