Repeal the Hughes Amendment

Thanks guys for your support, I understand it will take a ungodly huge number of signatures, thats one reason I plan to leave it open til at least January 20th. I am completely open to suggestions as to what we can do collectively to chip away at this thing. I know it may be a long process. If you are not aware about the MSSA v. Holder case thats currently been stayed, it could have a major effect on this. Currently its awaiting a conclusion to the Nordyke v. King case. Several states passed the Firearms Freedom Act a few years back stating that if a firearm was made in their state and remained in their state then the federal government has no right to control it since the interstate commerce clause of the 10th amendment would not apply. This would include all firearms regardless of type. Anything that we can come up with that we can gain support for I am in.
 
Tom I am aware the NFA and the Hughes Amendment in the FOPA are two different things. However, a lot of people do not know what the Hughes Amendment is but associate it with the "NFA of 1986" because autos are NFA items. I put it there to catch other peoples attention that may otherwise overlook it. I will correct the grammer of the first sentence though, but leave the (NFA 1986) part in the title unless you have a better suggestion. Thanks for your input.
 
I will correct the grammer of the first sentence though, but leave the (NFA 1986) part in the title unless you have a better suggestion.
Click to expand...
"NFA 1986" simply doesn't make sense, and most readers really won't know what it is.

To be honest, I'd suggest you drop the idea altogether. I'm sure it was meant well, but it doesn't matter how many signatures you get. It's not going to have an effect.

The first problem is that you're assuming anyone in power actually pays attention to the multitude of petitions on change.org. Take for example my state senator. I've spent an afternoon in his office. He gets between 60 and 70 letters a day. He has a staffer who has to skim each of those, filter out the weird crackpot rantings and irrelevant attaboys, and decide which ones merit his attention. Then that staffer has to do the same with innumerable emails. Then he's got another staffer who has to act as a filter for phone calls.

That's a guy representing a fairly rural district in one state. Now consider the volume of correspondence a United States senator must get. I sincerely doubt that many are even aware of change.org, much less investing time in reading it.

The Supreme Court has its own mechanism for deciding what cases to hear, and it has nothing to do with internet petitions.

Then there's the question of actually getting the Hughes Amendment repealed. By what means would we do so? Are we absolutely sure the Hughes Amendment is severable from FOPA? If not, that opens up a whole other problem.

Right now, any mention of machine guns in the debate hurts our chances. We're still laying the groundwork. The time to challenge the NFA and the Hughes Amendment will come, but not in the next few years.
 
"NFA 1986" doesn't make sense because it doesn't exist. The Hughes
ammendment was to the FOPA---Firearms Owners Protective Act of
1986. The Whole FOPA wasn't a bad thing. It fixed some glitches in
GCA '68. Hughes snuck his ammendment in at the last minute, and
it was passed by a very iffy voice vote. In other words--"The fix was in".


You want to try to modify an existing law and maybe have a chance of
success? Try to get suppressors de-listed from NFA '34 and reclassified
as a "firearm" which can be purchased on a 4473. If that's not possible,
try to get them reclassified as a AOW---$5 stamp instead of $200. In
a lot of the world suppressors are an over the counter item.
 
If the NFA is essentially tax legislation then sliding an amending clause - that reopens the Registry - into one of the various multiple volume tax bills would seem to be an effective way of progressing the issue.
Click to expand...
This is great in theory, but it carries a huge inherent risk- shining a spotlight on the fact that the $200 NFA tax has never been adjusted for inflation. When it was enacted in 1934, the purpose of the tax was to make NFA firearms prohibitively expensive; $200 had about the same purchasing power that $4,000 has today.

I shudder at the thought of a Congressional floor debate about the "Machine Gun Tax"- an unfortunately snappy slogan- and the campaign commercials it's bound to spawn, particularly in moderate to left-leaning states. "My opponent, [insert name], voted to allow the purchase of brand new full-auto machine guns for a fee of only $200, less than it costs to buy a new iPad. As your Congressman, I will vote to raise the Machine Gun Tax and keep these lethal military weapons off the streets, away from our schools, and out of the hands of potential terrorists." (Footage rolls of children walking to school, interspersed with footage of firefights in Afghanistan and a car being cut to pieces at Knob Creek.) :eek:

Although I fundamentally agree with the premise that private ownership of machine guns deserves full 2A protection, IMHO suppressors and short-barreled rifles are far more useful to the average shooter than a machine gun, and I would greatly prefer to have these removed from the NFA (+1 BillM) before approaching the machine gun issue and risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
 
Online petitions are inherently worthless for a great many reasons, and it isn't worth the effort since it won't mean anything. For that matter, the whitehouse.gov petitions are twice as worthless since gun owners generally are too paranoid to sign them. Not that they'd get a favorable response anyways.

If the NFA is essentially tax legislation then sliding an amending clause - that reopens the Registry - into one of the various multiple volume tax bills would seem to be an effective way of progressing the issue.
Click to expand...

Why does this keep coming up? It seems one of the worst ways possible to progress the issue, and as Tom Servo notes, the time isn't right. Such a violent push would certainly result in a net loss.

First, it's political suicide for whoever poked that clause in there. Who's willing to sacrifice their career for machine guns? And then how many days would it be until some sharp eyed reporter notices the last minute clause that doesn't point to tax code? There's no way it would stay on the books long enough for anyone to get their stamps.

Currently, the general public, and even probably most gun owners are fairly ignorant of NFA law. Chances are, the public response would go like this:

"What do you mean anyone can own machine guns? What do you mean the Machine Gun Tax is only $200? What do you mean it hasn't changed since 1934? What about the puppies and the kittens? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

How do you think the legislative response would go?

Waiting for a crack in the registry is about as good as we can hope for in the meantime.
 
In my opinion, second amendment provides, in line with the times in which it was written, to allow the individual to bear arms. I do not believe that any of the founding fathers thought for a moment that it should be okay to possess a fully automatic machine gun privately. I also believe the right to bear arms was enacted for personal protection and hunting purposes, as the lifestyle back then would demand.
Click to expand...
They didn't think about it, because they didn't exist yet.

But militias used cannons, the equivalent of modern day artillery, and you can bet the founders intended the second amendment to protect cannons.

Beyond the question of modern weapons developments, the founders clearly intended for the citizenry to have whatever sufficient firepower would be needed to oppose and dominate ANY illegitimate threat to liberty, whatever that threat may entail.

If the only weapons that are available to the citizens are insufficient to oppose those illegitimate threats to liberty, then the amendment will have been gutted for all practical purposes.

Remember a militia is primarily a military unit of the state. The founders intended for the militia to be regulated. I think is reasonable to highly regulate the possession of cannons (artillery) and fully automatic weapons. The more powerful the weapon, the more it should be regulated. But regulations must have a basis that is connected and drawn from the intent and purpose of the amendment. Regulations can't be onerous, or designed to suppress the right. They must support the intent of the amendment.

In my opinion, highly regulating fully automatic guns is fine. Requiring training for safety, proper use and marksmanship all serve the interest of the state (i.e. the people). Background checks on individuals who wish to possess them; safe and secure storage requirements are all fine.

What the founders clearly intended to be OFF the table is entirely banning access to weapons.
Leaving NO available path to owning them would be a ban and therefore it is unconstitutional, IMO.
 
Last edited:
I don't recall the exact quote, and am too lazy to look it up, but one of our Founding Fathers wrote something like "all the terrible implements of the soldier" were to be available to the citizens, and the other Founders did not seriously disagree.

In those days, that included cannon and warships. It also meant the standard issue military arms. Today those arms would be M16s, which under federal law are machine guns.

It is tragic that some of us have seen the horror and the destruction these "dangerous" machineguns can wreak. However NONE of them has ever done so without a human being aiming and pulling the trigger.

Personally, I find someone claiming to support gun rights, but only supporting some guns for some people to be disingenous at best, and hypocrytical, at worst. You may feel machineguns are "not for the public", but the history of legal private machinegun owners in the nearly 80 years since the passage of the NFA 34 is the most law abiding group of people on the planet.

There have been, I believe, two (at most) crimes commited with legal machinguns in all that time, and one of those was done by a police officer! That is a record better than any other group I know of.

Personally, I don't believe this is a good time to push for repeal of the Hughes amendment. Not yet. IF the administration changes enough in the next election, THEN we might be able to argue for a "return" to the pre 86 policy. But we won't have a good strong case, even then. The fact is that while we know that we have a legal right to machineguns, just the same as our legal right to all other firearms, the rest of the country has had multiple generations of brainwashing thanks to the entertainment media, that only govt agents, soldiers and CRIMINALS & TERRORISTS want or use machineguns.

That much should be obvious to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last 30 years. The whole "assault weapon" hysteria got traction because the semi autos they targeted look like machineguns, even though they aren't.

The Hughes amendment is a sleeping dog that is best let lie. Its day will come, but it is not this day. Sadly, it is a fact that bringing this issue to the public eye at this time, or in the near future, offers a much higher risk to our rights than potential rewards.
 
The best way to step toward repealing ( or at least circumventing) Hughes would be for real, state-sanctioned militia to authorized private purchases of M4s and M16s, etc. for militia training and use.

This can't be pre-textual, it has to be an actual state militia. In such a case, private ownership would fall squarely under the protection of the amendment.

State LE enforcement could provide letters for those accepted into it's militia service. The more regulated it is the more credibility it would have. Doesn't a new, select-fire M4 for under 2K sound pretty good?
 
First, it's political suicide for whoever poked that clause in there. Who's willing to sacrifice their career for machine guns?
Click to expand...

No politician who values his/her career will favor the sale of new machineguns: Thats a fact of life.
 
22 LR only.

A good place to start.

I think some sitting congresspeople would likely support it.

I could have fun:)

Many of the founding fathers owned artillery pieces. Load a field artillery piece with grapeshot and you have a weapon much more dangerous than most machine guns.
Doesn't a new, select-fire M4 for under 2K sound pretty good?
Click to expand...
As I understand it they wouldn't be anymore expensive than the semi-auto ones.

Might be a good idea to start repealing the ATFE decisions surrounding the Hughes amendment, such as no open bolt, etc.
 
Last edited:
The best way to step toward repealing ( or at least circumventing) Hughes would be for real, state-sanctioned militia to authorized private purchases of M4s and M16s, etc. for militia training and use... This can't be pre-textual, it has to be an actual state militia.
Click to expand...
Here's an idea that sure to spur some interesting debate...

Piggyback the militia* on top of a state's "Shall Issue" CHL program. IOW create something of a two-tiered system. The bottom tier is your traditional (so to speak) CHL program. The top tier goes through the same background check system and adds some additional classroom instruction and range training with FA weapons. It could be called something like a "Special Militia Weapons License" (SMWL).

The state could require people who wish to buy machine guns to hold a SMWL, giving the legislation some cover as a "public safety" measure. Here's the clincher: word the state law such that it specifically authorizes SMWL holders to "legally purchase... military-type machine guns and assault rifles" but does not tie the purchase directly to compliance with the NFA or Hughes Amendment. When a SMWL holder attempts to purchase a factory-new select-fire M-4 rifle- just like the Army uses and therefore very obviously "military-type"- the purchase will be denied under the Hughes Amendment and the matter can go to court.

Discuss. :)

*Before someone raises this as an objection, IIRC the Militia Act of 1903- the law that created the National Guard- very specifically does not preclude states from sanctioning armed militias in addition to the Guard. I'm just too lazy to look up the text right now. ;)
 
Piggyback the militia* on top of a state's "Shall Issue" CHL program.
Click to expand...
I like it. The state's militia could be statutorily define as an LE agency, therefore the exemption for law enforcement agencies would be all that is needed to bypass the NFA regulation.
 
As I understand it they wouldn't be anymore expensive than the semi-auto ones.
Click to expand...

There's no reason for a select fire M16 or M4 to be significantly more expensive than a semiauto. I imagine they'd be in the $1100-1500 range; you wouldn't want a budget level one, so the price floor would be about what the nicer ARs are going for now. Factor in the extra hole in the lower, the cost of the extra parts for the fire control group (or just part if it's full auto and not burst), and the paperwork hassle for the maker (assuming they stay NFA), and I'd expect no more than a $200 premium, likely much less.
 
But LEO can't OWN a machine gun. Their agency can issue them one.

There is one way this will be categorically challenged in court. A whole bunch of otherwise respected and law abiding citizens get together in one place, call the ATFE and tell them they are currently converting their semi-auto guns to full auto. You get a thousand respectable recordless people together, all chipping in some money for a legal defense fund, and the government has a little bit of a problem.

You'll never find the thousand people though.
 
6 million dead Jews agreed with SilentScreams that they had no need for machineguns during Nazi regime. How well did that work out for them?
 
I'm gonna agree with SilentScreams on this one. But, not because I believe the founding fathers would have agreed. I honestly can say I don't know, and don't care care what a bunch of long dead politicians would have thought one way or the other. I do know where they stood on owning other people, so we don't always see eye to eye anyway.
I like the fact that automatic weapons are hard to get, because all the people I personally know that go on about how much they want machine guns (and don't have them) have no business owning them. I'm glad "Bubba" up the hill does not have a M2.
A lack of specifically fully automatic weapons is pretty far down on the list of factors that allowed the Nazi's to commit genocide. I'm pretty sure we can avoid that without them.
We have to draw a line somewhere - the hyperbolic argument always being we don't want people having their own ICBM's. Personally I'm good with that line being set at fully automatic weapons. I think the system we have works pretty well.
You certainly don't have to agree - that's the awesome thing about the democratic system - but it does prove the point that even within 2A supporters there's no universal agreement on the issue. Project that onto the population in general, and I really don't think there's a lot of support.
Now, right to carry, reciprocity, and deregulating suppressors are fights I can get behind.
 
it does prove the point that even within 2A supporters
Click to expand...
For some 2A supporters that line is set at single shot shotgun, or maybe double barrels if you can prove you are a registered member of a sporting club that regularly shoots doubles.

I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of Thomas Payne owning a flintlock. He was pretty much bonkers. Of course, without him the American Revolution probably never comes close to happening. Do we want to wipe out that piece of history via regulation?

Obviously, many do.
 
6 million dead Jews agreed with SilentScreams that they had no need for machineguns during Nazi regime.
Click to expand...
If you can point out a direct correlation between the inability of civilians to own machine guns under the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, we'll listen. Otherwise, let's not stray into Godwin territory.

I honestly can say I don't know, and don't care care what a bunch of long dead politicians would have thought one way or the other.
Click to expand...
Well, some folks do. If they didn't, the Heller case would have gone very differently, and we wouldn't be where we are today.
 
There is no constitutional requirement for a person to be a part of a militia to bear arms... it is a civil right... The fault lies in that our ancestors believed the right would never be significantly questioned and certainly would not have imagined that it would be denied or "taxed" into a denial..

The way forward as I see it is for a case at the SCOTUS to spell out that arms are a civil right and that they may be borne anywhere lawfully that is not a specifically denied area or serves some special government interest... I do believe this is what the founders intended.... I also believe that it was the intent that anyone not actively imprisoned or jailed pending trial or actually in police custody would have and would always have the right to bear arms...

I believe the original intent was if you are not fit to live and be trustable in public then your execution or permanent jailing was required and that if you are fit for release then in the original nation your rights were returned without any court order being necessary. (Expungement un-necessary in the original intent)

Of course just to be up front in the old days if you were a felon you generally were hanged so they had few repeat offenders...

Our nation has wandered so far from the original intent of the 2A as to be ludicrous. It is direct fault of our representatives past and current and of the judicial systems lack of willingness to make clear cut rules in detail. It is also the direct fault of the voters not being responsible citizens in continuing to vote for those who are clearly for unconstitutional laws.

In my opinion (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice) you have the right to buy whatever, but at this time our nation has enacted laws both constitutional and unconstitutional to restrict what was never intended to be restricted. What we need is someone with a crazy amount of money, guts and a few thousand lawyers on retainer and a willingness to take it all the way and to keep doing so until the court spells it all out.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top