The NFA is a Tax, that is why it is in
Title 26, “Internal revenue code”. The ban on new machines guns is in
Title 18, “crimes and criminal procedure”. To say that
18 § 922(o) doesn't allow you to pay the NFA tax is incorrect. What it does is criminalize private machine gun ownership, with an exception for machine guns registered before the act was passed. So if, for example, the BATFE allowed you to pay an NFA Tax on a new machine gun, they couldn't prosecute you on NFA tax evasion, but it would still be illegal, due to 18 § 922(o), because it wouldn't have been in the registry before that bill was passed. Since any newly registered machine gun would be a violation of 18 § 922(o), the BATFE is nice enough to not allow you pay the NFA tax on one. Which is, I suppose, preferable to them taking your money and or raiding your home or place of business on the suspicion that you are making a machine gun.
It is a minor, but I feel important detail, that 18 § 922(o) doesn't even attempt to hide its encroachment on the RKBA, in a punitive taxing scheme, like the NFA does. This makes it even more clear that it violates the second amendment.
Because it isn't part of the revenue code, you couldn't bury an amendment repealing it, in a spending bill. Although I agree that in the current political climate, it's going to have to be attached to something if it is even going to have a chance at passing. Right now the number of people that support repealing this is small, and our representatives don't have much to gain politically by doing so, and they know it. So aside from a blessed few with principles, this isn't going to get a lot of votes by itself. I don't think a provision like this could be snuck into a big bill without anyone noticing, I'm fairly sure our representatives have staffers that do actually reads these laws in their entirety before they are voted on. I'm all for trying though.
In the short term I think, we will only be rid of it legislatively in the reverse situation that it was passed, attached as a poison pill amendment to something the opposition really wants. I'm not sure what the anti-gun crowd would want bad enough that they would vote to let us have machine guns again, but I'm going to guess it would be intolerable. As for the argument that the anti-gun crowd doesn't have a good position against it, due to all the hooplah that was made about the AWB sunset, I must ask. When was the last time not having a good argument got in the way of the anti-gun agenda?
In the long term, the best way to repeal this and other similar laws is going to be to convince enough people of our point of view, so that when they hear the anti-gun types talk, they won't be swayed.
cookekdjr said:
Ummmmmmmmm.....machine guns?
Look, I love the second amendment as much as the next guy, but you have to consider the consequences of a green light on machine guns.
I can't help but wonder who this next guy is? He doesn't seem to love what the second amendment actually says. Even in
U.S. v. Miller the SCOTUS acknowledged that if it had been shown that Miller's shotgun had been useful as a weapon in the militia he would have been protected by the second amendment. Given the number of full-auto weapons in the military, I don't think that even this point would be hard to make for machineguns.
cookekdjr said:
Lots of murdered innocent bystanders. I'm talking kids on playgrounds, mothers driving mini-vans, etc.
Similar claims were made about “assault weapons”, but the statistics show that criminals only use them a small fraction of the time. The only thing currently stopping anyone from converting a semi-auto into a full-auto right now is their respect for the law. A trait which murderers seldom have an abundance of.
fourays2 said:
no one is asking for un-restricted access.
I Am. Just not as a first step.
I don't think that the "brain wash" can ever be turned around.
)
)
...
