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.