Is anyone actually concerned that the instructions on the official change of address form from the state's website isn't good enough to satisfy the state's own request to notify them when changing address? If we're going by the letter of the law how do you know mailing a letter to the Firearms Records Bureau actually satisfies the condition that you must notify "the executive director of the criminal history systems board." Was he notified? Did he get the form? What if you mailed a blank envelope? Certified letter receipt proves nothing other than you mailed an envelope and it was delivered in this pants-shitting scenario. My point is the state can jam you up any way they want if they so choose to.
It's not the state I would care about, they're not going to come after you. They don't have the resources for something that petty. It's going to be the douche towns.
While this is true (that you could mail someone an empty envelope) let's put it this way, it's called a "good faith demonstration". Why would a reasonable person go through all that trouble to send an empty envelope to someone via certified mail? Having those receipts on hand demonstrates good faith to the judge or whoever if you're dealing with one of these problems. It makes it so your attorney can tell a douche town to go f*** itself.
That said the whole "getting rousted for failure to file COA" is rare as hell, probably rarer than even the AWB violation charge garbage is. But IMHO its free bingo space to
avoid by getting the 2 or 3 certified mail receipts. Why not take the nearly-free bingo space to insulate yourself from that?
On the other hand if you move into a MegaDoucheTown, those are exactly the kind of shit eating rights violating a**h***s that will use that as an excuse to try to f*** you over failure to file. Like if you're moving into a shithole like Brookline, Watertown, Lowell, etc.... issuing authorities that would love to f*** every gun owner directly up the ass if they could get away with it, you bet your ass if shown the hand they are going to try to play it. We've seen it here in the past, some guy came on here with some issuing authority that had searched his house because of some landlord faggotry and they found "gun paraphenalia" and then the kopsch actually looked up the address and didnt find him on file and challenged him about it. (long before MIRCS even, a lot of big dump cities and shit red towns literally have LTC holder databases, flagging various residences for dogs and firearms to tell the officers about before they get there.... )
Basically every MA douche town WRT guns is like that annoying hall monitor kid depicted in various 80s and 90s tv shows and movies. You give them an invitation and those motherf***ers are like "EYME TELLIN!
Of course the better option is to not live in a douche town or even this state, but you already knew that.