Could This Lawsuit Strikedown the Federal Ban on Machine Guns?

A federal ban on fully automatic machine guns has been firmly in place sine 1986. But a new lawsuit aims to end that ban and some experts say it has a chance to win.

In 1936 the federal government passed a law that forced people who wanted to buy and own a machine gun to add their names to a machine gun registry, pay a tax, and get expensive permits. But in 1986 the gov’t passed a stealth law that closed the registry meaning that no new buyer could ever again own a machine gun.

Now, a new lawsuit is attempting to end that registry closure so that new owners can be added to the rolls.

However, when the government closed the registry, they maintained that no person could own a new machinegun- but previously noted, corporations and trusts are not people.

With that in mind, citizens have already attempted to file for new registrations and one even succeeded; however, when the ATF caught-on to their bureaucratic snafu, they quickly revoked the first authorized registration of a machinegun seen in nearly 30 years.

Using that incident, a lawsuit has been filed in Dallas, Texas, in federal court challenging the ATF statutes and naming Attorney General Eric Holder and ATF Director B. Todd Jones as defendants.

Citing the famous Heller case that affirmed the right to use commonly-used weapons such as the weapons issued to our troops, the lawsuit appears designed to chip-away at the shoddy legal justification for prohibiting the registration of full-auto firearms.

If this works, then we are one step closer to allowing more people to buy and own machine guns. Do you think this is a good thing? Tell us in the comments.

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston and follow him on Twitter, on Google Plus , and Facebook.

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