Inherited firearms in Arizona: your questions, answered.

In Arizona, no. There is no state firearm registry in Arizona, and no federal registry for ordinary rifles, shotguns, or handguns — so there’s no government office where you “register” an inherited gun in your name. Once you’ve lawfully taken ownership as an heir, the firearm is simply yours.

Two things to keep in mind. NFA items — suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and machine guns — are federally registered and must be transferred to you through the ATF (see question 5). And if an heir lives in another state, that state may have its own rules. Arizona itself requires nothing.

Usually yes, with care. Federal law — the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act, or “FOPA” — gives you “safe passage” to transport a firearm through states where you might otherwise run into trouble, as long as you can legally possess it where your trip starts and ends, the firearm is unloaded, and it’s locked in the trunk or a separate container that isn’t directly accessible from the passenger seat, with ammunition stored separately.

The catch is the states in between — and your destination. Some states ban specific rifles or magazine sizes that are perfectly legal in Arizona, and a few cities along the way have their own rules. Before you drive a collection home, confirm the firearms are legal where you’re headed. If anything looks unusual, ask first.

It depends on where the heir lives. Within Arizona, the law does not require a background check or a licensed dealer to pass a firearm to a lawful heir — Arizona has no universal-background-check requirement for private transfers, and inheritance carries its own federal exemption on top of that.

Across state lines, it’s different. Federal law normally requires interstate transfers to go through a licensed dealer (an “FFL”) — but there’s a specific exception for genuine bequests and inheritance (18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(5)): an out-of-state heir can receive an inherited firearm directly, as long as they can legally own it in their home state. If that exception doesn’t fit, or the heir’s state requires it, the transfer runs through an FFL who performs a NICS background check.

This is one of the most important questions to get right. If a named heir is a “prohibited possessor” — for example, someone with a felony conviction whose rights haven’t been restored, certain domestic-violence or mental-health adjudications, or a minor — they cannot legally take possession of the firearm, even briefly, and no one may knowingly transfer it to them. In Arizona, knowingly handing a gun to a prohibited person is itself a crime.

The good news is there are clean, legal paths. The firearm can be sold and the proceeds passed to that heir instead of the gun itself, or it can go to a different eligible heir. A minor’s firearm is typically sold or held lawfully until they’re of age. The same idea applies when a gun is legal in Arizona but banned where the heir lives — rather than break that state’s law, the piece can be sold here.

Carefully, and only through the ATF. Items regulated under the National Firearms Act — suppressors (silencers), short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and machine guns — are individually registered with the federal government, and they can only pass to an heir after the ATF approves the transfer.

For an estate, that’s done on ATF Form 5, a tax-exempt transfer to a lawful heir (the usual $200 tax doesn’t apply to a true estate transfer). The item stays put until the Form 5 is approved, and the ATF won’t approve it if the heir is prohibited or the item is illegal in their state. Helpfully for executors, you don’t have to register the items to yourself first, the law-enforcement sign-off normally required isn’t needed for an estate transfer, and NFA items can even go directly to an out-of-state beneficiary.

One serious caution: a machine gun is only legal for a civilian to inherit if it was lawfully registered before May 1986. And any NFA item that was never registered is contraband — it can’t be legally kept or transferred, and must be surrendered to the ATF.

Generally, the executor or personal representative — the person the will or the court puts in charge of the estate. That role includes securing the estate’s property, and firearms are part of it. In practice, that means keeping the guns stored safely and out of the wrong hands while the estate is settled. The ATF recognizes that an executor may lawfully hold the estate’s firearms during administration, even NFA items, before they’re distributed.

Two things to watch. First, if the executor is themselves a prohibited possessor, they shouldn’t take physical custody — the firearms should be secured by an eligible person or a licensed dealer instead. Second, don’t distribute anything to heirs until you’ve confirmed each heir can legally receive it (and, for NFA items, until the ATF approves).

A gun trust is a trust created specifically to own firearms — most often NFA items like suppressors. If the estate paperwork includes one, the firearms held by that trust are owned by the trust, not by the individual, so they generally pass according to the trust’s terms and bypass probate entirely. That’s a big part of why people set them up.

What to do: find the trust document, identify the “successor trustee” it names (the person who takes over), and follow what the trust says about who may possess the firearms. Because trusts are precise legal instruments, it’s worth a quick call to the attorney who drafted it before anyone takes possession.

First, an Arizona-specific surprise: in Arizona, you generally cannot turn a working firearm over to local police to be destroyed. State law (A.R.S. § 13-3108) bars cities and counties from destroying firearms, or acquiring them in order to destroy them — guns that come into government hands usually have to be sold, not melted down. So the “drop it off to be destroyed” option many people picture isn’t really how it works here.

The practical, legal way to part with unwanted firearms in Arizona is to transfer them to a licensed dealer, who can take possession, verify everything, and dispose of or resell them lawfully. If a firearm appears unsafe, damaged, or possibly unregistered — for instance, a suspected NFA item — don’t try to handle or repair it yourself. That’s exactly when to bring in professionals.