"Wikipedia is very much swayed by a particular point of view and they will alter any post that discredits that POV"
*sigh* the whole world is not a conspiracy. It's well-known history that the NRA was heavily invested in getting the bill put to bed (that whole seven years' work bit) and the Dem's took advantage of their eagerness to illegally slip through Hughes. President Reagan, at best ambivalent on gun issues, allowed the whole mess to slide into policy (likely with some measure of aforementioned NRA and congressional lobbying). Basically a case of evil triumphing because political men did nothing, since they would have lost what they'd worked for.
So yeah, the NRA threw machinegun owners under the bus. But even as a guy who would love to be able to legally own and make Title I machineguns, and understands more than most just how blurry and fraught the distinction between machineguns and semi-autos is, I realize that the machinegun niche of gunownership is an utterly insignificant constituency. While it would have been nice to preserve their standing, the fact is FOPA was far more important to both those MG owners and everyone else than the registry.
Where the NRA really let everyone down was not following through on their promise to address the Hughes amendment impact after passage of their baby. To this day I'm not aware of any significant interest on their part.
FWIW, it doesn't really matter that the NRA didn't put the interests of MG owners above all others. The fact is that group of folks is so small that it was unrealistic to expect that any large-scale lobbying group would given them outsize influence. I know we're in a Constitutional Republic, and we have fixed laws, but those are merely a means to protection, and without sufficient numbers or resources, you will eventually lose out to others' interests.
Look on the bright side; the Hughes Amendment has been a primary illustration of exactly what tactics and goals the anti's have in mind. So long as a defacto ban on an entire class of arms exists, they cannot claim they are not out for civilian disarmament.
TCB