An excellent explanation of the fix that ATF has gotten itself (and millions of pistol-grip shotgun owners) in.

Mossberg 500 Cruiser. Got one of these? Well, you're now a potential felon in possession of a destructive device.

From ARFcom.

I looked to see if someone had posted an explanation of the ATF screw-up and didn't see it clearly explained anywhere. Sorry if this is a repeat, but here is what the situation appears to be.

First key point: "Pistol gripped shotguns" are not shotguns under the NFA due to not being designed to fire from the shoulder.

26 U.S.C. § 5845(d): The term “shotgun” means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed shotgun shell to fire through a smooth bore either a number of projectiles (ball shot) or a single projectile for each pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed shotgun shell.

Second key point: All weapons with barrels greater than one-half inch in diameter are destructive devices unless otherwise exempted.

26 U.S.C. § 5845(f): The term “destructive device” means .. any type of weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter, except a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Secretary finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes;

Do you see the ATF screw-up yet?

The problem is that pistol-gripped shotguns have been sold for many years, but the ATF has just realized that NFA defines them as destructive devices. Why is this?

1: They have a barrel of more than one-half inch in diameter.

2: They cannot qualify for the sporting purpose exception in 5845(f)(2) since they are not "shotguns" (no shoulder stock).

It appears that back when ATF declared pistol gripped shotguns to not be "shotguns" nobody realized that would eliminate the destructive device exception. Apparently someone has now looked at this more closely and realized that all those Mossberg Cruisers and Pistol Gripped 870s are actually destructive devices and the ATF has no good way out of the situation. Hence, they are quietly looking for some legislative changes to the NFA to make the problem go away.