I would say since his device was an unregistered SBR, it did not have the federal (or Mass law) privilege to be considered a Title 2 firearm (firearm being the key definition that people say exempts it from the MA AWB). Federally and per MA law, it would be considered a Title 1 rifle and because of this, it could only have a 16 inch or longer barrel on it - making the AWB enforceable on said device if he had more than 2 evil features.
That's not how gun laws work, an unregistered SBR is still an SBR in the eyes of Federal law. Same thing as an unregistered machinegun. Even if unstamped, those things are still Title II firearms, even if contraband. Being contraband does not magically make them "something else". "What the thing is" does not change unless there's some weird provision in the law that makes it so. There is nothing in MGL or USC to support this idea of "gun morphing". The guns don't magically get some weird technical definition that only applies when its unregistered.
But to add to that, we would need to know where exactly the AWB charge stemmed from and the specifics; as he could have been charged with an AWB crime if he only had post ban mags.
It was a gun, some kind of AR variant that had like a 10-12in upper on it and a normal stock. There may or may not have been mag charges, I don't remember.
I'd have to find it but in one of the guns of mass groups on faceplant someone posted it. Basically a guy with no LTC got caught on a bunch of rando shit and he sucked for a plea on all of it, including an AWB charge. It sounded like the guy had priors which is why charges weren't dropped and no CWOF out deal or dropped charges was offered, instead it looks like the guys attorney got offered a shit sandwich deal by the prosecutor that consisted of "get him to suck for all this shit, and we'll agree to only put him away for 2-3 years" So he sucked for a guilty plea on all of the shit including the AWB charge.
The only way this gets solved is for someone with an actual registered/paid stamp SBR with an unpinned stock and muzzle device getting caught up in a court case.
Lol the highlighted part is meaningless. Again, show the class where this makes a difference. It doesn't,. under MA or federal law. It doesn't change what
the thing is, and how it relates to the MA AWB. There's no magical clause that says "If something is contraband, its always an assault weapon".
Further, the likelihood of your posited scenario happening are somewhere between slim and none. 99% of people with NFA are going to get an attorney. The attorney will cut a deal and the problem quietly goes away or gets turned into a lesser charge that the client CWOFs out to, etc. Or the charge will just get dropped along the way, etc.
It's exceedingly difficult to get a fully exposed in court test case. It's also exceedingly difficult to have a case where this gets a 110% test. Where a defense attorney goes "my client is legal because of this and this and this, and technically this is not illegal because that, and therefore he is not guilty" (and judge or jury plays along and agrees with it). That shit almost never happens in mass. Hell the only time I ever heard of it happening was with the Joe Car/AR pistol thing, where basically they had used the AGs garbage to convince the (judge?) that the cleint's AR pistol was exempt "because it had a 10rd mag pinned in it and was not an AW per the edict... "