The NFA restrictions on machine guns wouldn’t be quite so bad without the 1986 machine gun ban. That law, signed into being by President Ronald Reagan, basically said private machine gun ownership was restricted to only those firearms made before the law went into effect. At the time, this was a mild inconvenience, but what happened in the long run is that full-auto firearms became increasingly difficult not just to find, but to afford.
Today, a machine gun can cost as much as a nice house, depending on the firearm, and the ban itself just doesn’t seem to pass the Bruen sniff test.
Unfortunately, as Texas Gun Rights notes, this is just proof we’ve got a long way to go for our gun rights.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld the federal ban on civilian possession of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986, leaving in place one of the most restrictive gun laws on the books and reminding Second Amendment supporters that court victories alone are not enough to safeguard freedom.
The restriction stems from the 1986 Firearm Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA), specifically the Hughes Amendment, which froze the civilian machine gun registry.
In practical terms, it means law-abiding Americans can only legally own machine guns registered prior to the 1986 cutoff, creating an artificially limited supply and driving prices into the tens of thousands of dollars.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision represents another example of a harsh reality gun owners have learned repeatedly over the decades: the courts can be a critical battleground, but they are not a guaranteed shield.
Even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision, which emphasized that gun restrictions must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, lower courts have continued to uphold long-standing federal gun laws, especially those involving weapons politicians and bureaucrats classify as “dangerous” or “unusual.”
For gun rights advocates, the ruling underscores that relying solely on the courtroom to defend the Second Amendment is a gamble, and one that can cost Americans years of liberty while cases crawl through the appellate process.
The reality is simple: freedom is not secured in one place. It must be defended everywhere.
I agree entirely.
We win in the courts a fair amount. It’s easy to see that, especially post-Bruen, as the best way forward. It probably is, if we’re being honest. However, it can’t be the only round in the magazine. We’ve got to win legislatively if we’re going to really restore our rights to where the Founding Fathers intended for them to be.
The machine gun ban is particularly egregious because it has made it so full-auto ownership is reserved for the wealthier among our numbers and completely keeps armed citizens from owning the latest and greatest machine guns. Our Founding Fathers intended for us to meet a tyrannical force on equal, if not better footing. They wanted us to be able to keep our government in check, and to do that, we needed as much firepower as we can muster ourselves.
And if the courts aren’t going to do that, we need lawmakers to step up and make that happen.
We’re foolish if we count on getting our rights back purely through the courts.
That said, repealing the machine gun ban isn’t exactly the easiest sell even in a GOP-controlled Congress. It’s easier than repealing the NFA entirely, but that doesn’t exactly mean it’s easy. It’s like saying that nuclear fusion is easier to accomplish than sorcery. I mean, yeah, it is, but easier doesn’t mean easy.
We have to step up our game and win over the hearts and minds of the American people, and since we don’t control most of the avenues of information flow, such as the media and academia, that’s easier said than done.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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