I have to wonder why you are bringing this up
I don't know anything about you except what you have written, and I don't need to know anything about you, except what you wish known. But I was there, both before and after. And if you aren't inclined to believe more than 40 years of experience, so be it.
I lived through having to produce ID and be logged in a book every time I bought ammunition. I lived through the loss of direct mail order guns (and ammo) without having to have any kind of govt. license. While it never got me personally, I did know people who lost their freedom, jobs, and rights because of a typographical error on a form, and a zealous prosecutor. And people suffering the same fate, because they had a flat tire while driving through someplace with a cased unloaded gun in the trunk. These things affected all gun owners, or had the potential to.
As to import restrictions, at the time, the real reason behind the push for import restrictions (68) was simple trade protectionism. To protect the business of American gun makers. Oh yeah, we were ticked off. Especially so when some desirable guns from quality foreign makers were banned from import because of the totally arbitrary decision process instituted by the Feds. But we lived with it, and argued and fought and eventually got some of the more minor provisions (ammo record keeping) eased. But people were still having their lives destroyed by paperwork errors and being jailed for having the misfortune to have their car break down in an anti-gun area while they were on their way through.
The 86 FOPA would virtually end that. It was, and is a good law, and as has been noted, the ONLY Fed law in our favor. It would actually help honest people by keeping them safe from prosecution because of things that were out of their control.
And we got stabbed in the back by Congress. At the last minute, by voice vote only, they added the Hughes amendment, and passed the whole bill.
Of there was ever a valid argument for the President having line item veto power, this one is it. But the President doesn't have that power. He either has to take the whole thing, or reject the whole thing. And based on the advice he got (no matter how we may feel about it now), Reagan went for the greatest good for the greatest number. And at the time, NFA owners were the minority. Remember the spin. If Reagan had killed the bill, he would be blamed by many, as opposed to the few who were affected by the bill as passed.
A political decision at the time. Not one we approved of, but one we understood. With the passage of the FOPA, there was, for a time, a feeling of optimism about our gun laws, and it was widely felt that we would also be able to remove the Hughes amendment, eventually.
A sad fact of life in these United States is that outside if the shooting community, (and even inside of it to a lesser extent) few people understand much about machineguns, and the laws that regulate them. Except for the one fact they do understand, that "they are illegal" Not quite accurate, but the general assumption remains. And has been re-enforced by over 50 years of the entertainment industry showing private machinegun ownership only in criminal hands. The Bad Guys own machineguns. The Good Guys only use govt owned machineguns, and turn them back in after shooting the Bad Guys.
Decades of that image being hammered into the minds of people who don't know any different creates a powerful "everybody knows" these things are bad. Evil. Only bad people have them, and therefore, if you have or want them, you must be or want to be evil as well. Not the truth, certainly, but a commonly held belief.
Now, you can be angry at Reagan for allowing this come to pass, your opinion is of course, your own. But remember that this was the same Reagan who refused to support any gun control legislation after being shot! That is certainly not typical anti-gun political behavior. A real anti-gun politician who survived an assassination attempt would have written sweeping gun bans in their own blood if they couldn't get a pen fast enough.
I don't see what purpose it serves to hammer on where Reagan let us down. He can't do us any harm or good any more, and all it does as far as I can see is lower our opinion of those doing it.
I'm sorry you can't go out and buy a new NFA weapon at any price, or a used one at a reasonable price. I'm sorry I can't do it as well. But until we can get the law changed, that's where we are. Personally, I would like to see the Hughes amendment repealed in the same manner it was passed. Attached to a big bill that has a lot of support, at the last minute, with a voice only vote. This might even be remotely possible someday, but unfortunately, today is not yet that day.
I do admit that if you are hammering on the damage done to us by the Clinton administration I would support you. Not because I dislike the Clintons (which I do), but because the Clintons are still active in politics, and so their past actions must not be allowed to be forgotten, ignored, or "spun" into something less than the truth. Because no matter what these people say, what they did (and allowed to be done) is incontrovertible proof of who, and what they are. These people must not be given another chance to do it to us again.
A lot of the people I see on these forums who are the most vocal about their anger over "losing a whole class of firearms" tend to be younger, and have only fairly recently learned about what was done to us then, and therefore their anger and indignation is much fresher in their minds. So is the bitterness against those who "allowed it" to happen. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be nearly as much written against those who actively brought it about as there is against those who let it happen. I wonder why?
To my mind, the 94 AWB was a greater evil, because it affected many more people. The only saving grace to the AWB was the suset provision, and we should thank again those who got that provision included. And the Lautenberg Amendment is pure vindicitive evil. Worse and any of the others in it's own way. Denying our rights permanently, for misdemeanor offenses is just wrong. And being retroactive just adds insult to injury. The only "bright spot" in that bill is the fact that Lautenberg is such a fanatic that he excluded the "regular" exceptions for police and active duty military. It may seem hypocritical, but to me, THAT is a good thing. No offense to those good people activly serving in uniform, either civil or military, but there should be only one law for all of us. We should not have one law for some of us because of their job, and a different law for the rest of us. Period.
None of us should have to suffer under a bad law, but if I have to suffer under a bad law, so should you. No matter who you are or what you do. That is the whole idea of all of us being equal under the law. Perhaps if this concept was actively applied to Congress, the way our Founding Fathers intended, we would have fewer bad laws.
And as far a Reagan lobbying for the Clinton AWB, well, my cynical worldview says, why not? It was a bad law, which never could do what it was claimed to do, and was guaranteed to generate a lot of anger and resentment. Why not support it, because Clinton and the Democrats were sure to get the blame. The next election after the AWB passed clearly proved that. The Republican "victory" after the Clinton AWB which broke a 40 year lock on the Democrat's congressional majority was a direct result of the outrage the AWB created. Clinton himself admitted this to fellow Democrats (but never directly to the press). I would say it was a rather shrewed political move on Reagan's part, helping to pass something which damaged his rival party and gave control to his. Well.....
