What ban?
There was no ban, in law. It did have the effect of preventing future additions, but there was no ban. Every gun legal to own before 1986 was still legal afterwards. (Yes, I know it really is a ban, but legally it isn't until a court says it is, and then we can get it overturned, using the
Heller decision, maybe.)
We've discussed this alot before, and the general consensus is that there is no way to obtain sufficient public support to pressure lawmakers to repeal the relevant laws. And bringing the issue into the public eye is much more likely to result in MORE restrictions, not less.
Face the reality that, no matter how much we find these guns fun, useful, desirable, and safe, the majority of Americans do not. They have been told, taught, trained, and shown for decades how bad and how dangerous they are, and there is "simply no reason for civilians to own them".
Forget the fundamental rights issues, while the principle does apply, it will not overcome current, historical, and likely future public perception. The FOPA 86 did more good than harm, even with the Hughes amendment. The amendment was meant to be a poison pill, to kill the bill. In that, it failed. We got the greatest good, for the greatest number of gun owners. We had to take a hit to do it though.
We whine and gripe about the things that law keeps us from being able to do, while conveniently forgetting all the good the original bill (without the Hughes amendment) does. Without the FOPA 86 there would likely, by now, be thousands of cases of innocent gun owners and dealers being prosecuted for minor technical violations of state and federal gun laws.
Before FOPA 86, people went to jail for making a mistake on a gun registration form (a misspelling or transposing a couple of digits got you a felony conviction!). People went to jail for having a flat tire in a gun restrictive state as they passed through, even when their guns were unloaded, cased in the locked trunk, and legal where they coming from, and were they were going. Got guns on a plane, and it has to make a forced landing in a state where registration is required? You just became a criminal! These and many more things put a number of people in jail, with felony convictions, and no more guns for life! FOPA 86 provided a blanket protection for millions of us from these kinds of abuses.
Its too bad we had to accept closing the NFA registry, its too bad you can't build some guns from all foreign made parts. It shouldn't be that way. But it is. And we aren't going to change it with a public opinion campaign.
The only way we are ever going to get that law changed is either by a court decision (possible, but it will take even more years, even after the case finally gets in the system, and may not go our way in the end), or by quietly slipping in language in some "must pass" bill to make an "editorial change" to public law XXX.XX. And to do that, we need some legislators firmly in our camp, in the specifics, not just 2nd Amendment supporters.
If it gets into the court of public opinion, the most likely outcome is that not only will we lose, we will lose more than today's status quo. The unpleasant fact is that those of us who fancy these kinds of firearms are a minority of gun owners, and a virtually insignificant minority of the general public. That's why they were able to do it to us in the first place, and why we stand almost no chance of getting it undone. That is democracy in action.
Maybe that is why our Founding Fathers set up a Republic, and not a democracy?