A few days ago, an article by Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman looked at some of the political shenanigans pulled by forcible citizen disarmament advocates in furtherance of their "assault weapon" ban agenda in Washington state. One of the people speaking in favor of the ban was Bellevue, WA police chief Linda Pillo. Mr. Workman points out a number of problems with her testimony, but I am going to focus on just one.
Chief Pillo made a claim that you just don't hear all that often anymore--that:
Assault weapons can also be easily converted to fully automatic machine guns.
There's probably a pretty good reason for that claim to have been largely abandoned by the gun prohibitionists--it's demonstrably untrue (not that that is a reliable deterrent). An old newspaper article, no longer available at the paper's website (but can be seen here) provides a nice description of a reporter's investigation into what would be involved in performing such a conversion.
The short version is: yes--it can be done, but not without a fair amount of knowledge and an expensively equipped shop. This is how Mr. Bowers summed it up:
Does any of this make sense to you? It doesn't to me. And so I suspect you are getting the point: The easy machine gun is a myth. In fact, if I weren't so polite, I would call it a blatant lie.
My thinking, though, is: even if the "easy machine gun conversion" were not a myth--so what?
Contrary to popular misconception, fully automatic firearms--"machine guns," in common parlance--are not illegal in many states. The National Firearms Act of 1934 imposed extremely draconian federal restrictions on them, but anyone willing to jump through all the hoops, and pay the $200 tax stamp, could own one (or a hundred). Then, in 1986, the so-called "Hughes Amendment," named after its author, Congressman William Hughes (D-NJ), was passed (albeit questionably), banning private ownership of any fully automatic firearm not manufactured or imported before May 19 , 1986.
Why the need to cap the number of fully-automatic firearms in the country, thus artificially vastly inflating the price, rendering them out of financial reach of most Americans? Certainly not because of a rash of "machine gun violence" prior to adoption of the Hughes Amendment--in fact, violent crime committed with legally owned machine guns between 1934 (National Firearms Act) and 1986 (Hughes Amendment) was practically non-existent.
In other words, even if one were willing to give up some "liberty for temporary securtiy," there's little security to be gained here. What we give up, though, is more than "merely" the liberty to exercise an uninfringed right to keep and bear arms--we are, in fact, giving up security.
That's because by virtue of eliminating a civilian market for new full-auto weapons designs, we provide little incentive for innovation in that field. That shortchanges our troops, and is potentially costing us in additional blood in two wars.
The Hughes Amendment must be repealed. Perhaps it's time to slip in an amendment doing so, in the next "must-pass" bill Congress debates.
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Comments
It's probably easier to just make a "machine gun" from scratch. Just look at the plans that "thehomegunsmith" used to offer from Jolly Old Freedom-Fearing England. Nothing too complicated there.
Go ahead- ban the guns, burn the books, and kill all those with knowledge of metallurgy, mechanics, and chemistry. Guns are not going away.
Most people don't know the difference between a fully-auto/select fire firearm and one that's been damaged/worn enough to 'slam fire'. There was one idiot on Huffpo (redundant I know) who thought the old "all it takes is to file down a pin" meme meant the FIRING pin.
MOLON LABE!
"The Hughes Amendment must be repealed. Perhaps it's time to slip in an amendment doing so, in the next "must-pass" bill Congress debates."
That sounds beautiful, but I doubt our current batch of RINOs would ever take such a bold stance.
Unfortunately the dream of repealing any repressive gun law is just that--a dream.
Politicians simply don't have the political will to go against the tide when the propaganda machine of the gun ban proponents goes into "Don't let these dangerous weapons back onto the street" mode.
It's quite a leap from removing the democrat Super Majority in the Congress to slipping in amendments into spending bills. The Republican Party hasn't been able to author or amend any piece of legislation since 2005.
Repealing the odious Hughes Amendment is entirely a wonderful pipe dream. Alas, no new machine guns will ever become available to American citizens.
"Alas, no new machine guns will ever become available to American citizens."
you must mean legally? as in, "everything the nazis did was legal."
Good for you for the photo concerning Iraq. The Iraqi people could also legally own those weapons under Saddam(and I've seen allegations of confiscation during the occupation..). That ought to cause considerable discomfort in the "we invaded to give them freedom" crowd.
It's an important issue, and one that too often gets waylaid by the artificial "partisan" nature of mainstream political discourse.
Indeed, that photo makes your case without a word being written.
The Firearm Owners Protection Act "Hughes amendment" AKA 922(o) may or may not have closed the door.
I remind you all that the 1968 Gun Control Act allows for "amnesty" registration. With the ATF required by law to keep records of NFA firearms ownership AKA the "NFRTR" (the National Firearms Registry and Transaction Record), David Codrea pointed out with actual ATF documents that the records kept by ATF are flawed with multiple mistakes.
Just like you must reconcile your check book from time to time to keep it accurate, an amnesty is required to keep the NFRTR accurate. There is no other way for ATF to fix it's records short of an amnesty....it is only a matter of time....and does not require congress to do anything.
This will happen, it's only a matter of when.
The "when" will come after federal cases are lost by ATF due to error in the NFRTR.
Form my cold dead hands!!!!
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