Forfeiture reaches firearms and ammunition that were INVOLVED IN or USED IN certain violations — knowing violations of the listed subsections of section 922, knowing importation in violation of section 922(l), knowing violation of section 924, WILLFUL violation of any other provision of the Act or of this part, or any violation of any other criminal law of the United States. It also reaches firearms or ammunition merely INTENDED to be used in one of a specified set of offenses, but only where that intent is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence. Note the two different mental states the provision uses: knowing for the enumerated violations, willful for everything else in the Act and this part.

Two limits sit inside the same section and both work in the licensee’s favor. First, only those firearms or quantities of ammunition PARTICULARLY NAMED AND INDIVIDUALLY IDENTIFIED as involved in, used in, or intended to be used in a violation are subject to seizure, forfeiture, and disposition — the provision does not authorize sweeping an inventory because some part of it was implicated. Second, any action or proceeding for forfeiture must be COMMENCED WITHIN 120 DAYS of the seizure.

There is also a route back. On acquittal of the owner or possessor, or dismissal of the charges against them other than on the Government’s own motion before trial, or the lapse or court termination of a restraining order they are subject to, the seized or relinquished firearms or ammunition SHALL BE RETURNED FORTHWITH — to the owner or possessor, or to a person they delegate. The one exception is the obvious one: not where return would place the owner, possessor, or delegate in violation of law. So a resolved case does not by itself restore possession to a person who has become prohibited in the meantime.

The intended-use limb does not apply to offenses generally — it applies to a listed set. Four of them the provision describes in words: crimes of VIOLENCE, as the term is defined by reference to section 924(c)(3); DRUG offenses punishable under the Controlled Substances Act or the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act; unlawful IMPORTATION under section 922(l) — the prohibition § 10.1 opened with; and any offense prosecutable in a court of the United States involving the EXPORTATION of firearms or ammunition. The rest are identified by citation alone — sections 922(a)(1), 922(a)(3), 922(a)(5), 922(b)(3), 922(i), 922(j), 922(n), and 924(b) — and the regulation does not say what each of them prohibits, so a reader who needs to know must go to the statute rather than take a summary from here. Two qualifiers travel with the list and both narrow it: the 922(a) and 922(b) group reaches a firearm only where it is involved in a PATTERN OF ACTIVITIES that includes one of those offenses, and the section 922(d) limb applies where it is the TRANSFEROR who intends the firearm to be used in that offense. Separately, a person convicted under section 932 or 933 forfeits any property constituting or derived from the proceeds of the violation, and any property used or intended to be used to commit or facilitate it.