1986 FOPA Hughes Amendment Vote (machine gun ban) footage located

It's not going to change a thing.

The courts in the US generally adhere to the "enrolled bill" doctrine. Essentially, if the House and Senate say "this is the bill," the courts treat the mechanisms of how it got to be the bill as being inside a "black box" and don't touch it. This originates from Field v Clark SCOTUS decision. If the presiding officers of the House and Senate certify the bill, courts in the US (federal) must not consider the internal proceedings of the legislature that got it there.

IOW, the remedy has to come from the legislature. And I don't see that happening (unfortunately) any time soon. I would not make a shopping list, nor panic about any "investments" in title III gear.

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Originally Posted by NikeBauer21

Yea, I honestly don't know if this is the right time to bring this up. You may have not only congress shocked, saying "Oh my, we better plug the holes right away!", force swift legislation through to "fix" the error, which will be easily signed by the president.

It may be best to wait until there is a more conservative president and congress in place, who is more likely to note the error, and order changes to enforcement laws.

I don't know, but I just don't see this going anywhere with a Dem-controlled Senate, and a Dem president. It could potentially do more harm than good to bring up the error at this time because they may do more to "patch" the problem, rather than completely void it as if it shouldn't have happened.

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That's a tough call either way because on the other hand, the dems don't want to get obliterated like they did after the AWB. That fear, especially since they are currently licking their wounds from the last election, might make this a great time to bring up the issue.

Regarding the nay-sayers: Please feel free to continue to enlighten us regarding the futlity of this effort after you contact your reps about this issue. (kudos if you already have) All a person has to do is look at the Constitution, then look at the current state of affairs and one can plainly see that politicians are more than happy to bend, twist and break the rules in order to satisfy the people that kick and scream the loudest.

NRA, GOA, fOAC and other such organizations had better jump on this. It's one thing to push for 'new' legislation, but fixing legislation that was clearly passed unlawfully has to be a no-brainer.

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Originally Posted by Carnes

Regarding the nay-sayers: Please feel free to continue to enlighten us regarding the futlity of this effort after you contact your reps about this issue. (kudos if you already have) All a person has to do is look at the Constitution, then look at the current state of affairs and one can plainly see that politicians are more than happy to bend, twist and break the rules in order to satisfy the people that kick and scream the loudest.

NRA, GOA, fOAC and other such organizations had better jump on this. It's one thing to push for 'new' legislation, but fixing legislation that was clearly passed unlawfully has to be a no-brainer.

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I sent something to mine, but he's not gonna touch it (blue-dogish Dem).

The problem, as I see it, is the Republicans don't want to vote on something like reversing Hughes any more than the dems want to vote on a mag capacity issue. It's the third rail for all.

Moreover, it becomes a problem of reasonableness. There are things, like the "universal carry reciprocity" thing that came up last Congress that the RINOs and Blue-Dogs can vote for because they seem "reasonable." Reversing Hughes, which will be framed as "machine gun legalization" is not (even though we all know it's not that way).

Now, I personally believe Hughes is patently silly. All it did was create a new class of investments (pre-1986 auto stuff).

Like making sausages...

What about pushing congress to allow another amnesty because of this?

Something like, "We are going to continue to enforce the Hughes amendment of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, because that amendment was part of the final bill that was passed. However, due to the questionable nature of how the amendment was added, and the questionable nature of the enforceability of the amendment, we are hereby allowing the registration of all machine guns acquired or manufactured by American citizens whom are not felons, nor illegal drug user, nor were ever involuntarily committed to a mental institution, with a grace period of 90 days from the passage of this bill."

Completely separate issue. 1986 Hughes Amendment governed the manufacture of Machine guns for sale to civilians. Amnesty dealt with machine guns and all other NFA that already existed in people's hands (purchase, bring backs from overseas, etc).

I dont think there would be any chance of someone purchasing a machine gun between 1968 and 1986 and somehow neglecting to have it registered. The only chance that would have occurred is an outright illegal action.

Rather, we need to get Hughes 86 repealed in order to allow sale of modern machine guns for civilians. While I'm all for amnesty, I don't see this as a realistic path.

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Originally Posted by bac0nfat

What about pushing congress to allow another amnesty because of this?

Something like, "We are going to continue to enforce the Hughes amendment of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, because that amendment was part of the final bill that was passed. However, due to the questionable nature of how the amendment was added, and the questionable nature of the enforceability of the amendment, we are hereby allowing the registration of all machine guns acquired or manufactured by American citizens whom are not felons, nor illegal drug user, nor were ever involuntarily committed to a mental institution, with a grace period of 90 days from the passage of this bill."

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do you know the definition of amnesty? there have been a lot of amnesty's.
in 90 days there would be 100,000's of firearms manufactured & registered.

(I doubt that would happen)

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Originally Posted by GeorgeF

Completely separate issue. 1986 Hughes Amendment governed the manufacture of Machine guns for sale to civilians. Amnesty dealt with machine guns and all other NFA that already existed in people's hands (purchase, bring backs from overseas, etc).

I dont think there would be any chance of someone purchasing a machine gun between 1968 and 1986 and somehow neglecting to have it registered. The only chance that would have occurred is an outright illegal action.

Rather, we need to get Hughes 86 repealed in order to allow sale of modern machine guns for civilians. While I'm all for amnesty, I don't see this as a realistic path.

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They had an amnesty in 1968, allowing registration of all MG's that were acquired between 1934 and 1968. I don't know the exact numbers, but I believe it nearly doubled what was in the registry. People were bringing machine guns back from wars, and building machine guns illegally. In 1968 they had a chance to register them and be free and clear of any criminal charges.

What I'm suggesting is a new amnesty, for any MG acquired or manufactured up until the current date. Believe me, there are a TON of unregistered MG's out there in the hands of otherwise law-abiding citizens. We could potentially double whats in the registry again, which would increase the supply to levels that would significantly bring down the prices. Also, if there was a grace period, you could potentially convert a bunch of lowers really quick and have them registered.

ETA: Machine guns have needed to be registered since the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The Hughes amendment was NOT the law that started regulating machine guns.

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Originally Posted by MrBi11

do you know the definition of amnesty? there have been a lot of amnesty's.
in 90 days there would be 100,000's of firearms manufactured & registered.

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Yea, thats kinda the idea. They did it in 1968, why couldn't they do it again?

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Originally Posted by pyld

I sent something to mine, but he's not gonna touch it (blue-dogish Dem).

The problem, as I see it, is the Republicans don't want to vote on something like reversing Hughes any more than the dems want to vote on a mag capacity issue. It's the third rail for all.

Moreover, it becomes a problem of reasonableness. There are things, like the "universal carry reciprocity" thing that came up last Congress that the RINOs and Blue-Dogs can vote for because they seem "reasonable." Reversing Hughes, which will be framed as "machine gun legalization" is not (even though we all know it's not that way).

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I pretty much agree with what you are saying. Overturning Hughes, even though it was never legit to begin with, would be a big challenge.

Unfortunately if we sit and wait for 'the time to be right' it is likely that we will never see that time. I've come to believe that if you face a big challenge the 'best time' to try to tackle it is almost always 'right now.' It is necessary to seize opportunities in order to get stuff like this changed, and while this may or may not be the right opportunity, if all we do is sit and wait while opportunities pass us by, we will do little more than reinforce concepts that will only ever make it harder to overturn the amendment.

Even if there is no chance for Hughes to get overturned right now, making the effort will at least plant a seed in the back of people's minds that there are regular people out there that think machine guns should be legal to own, and they are serious about it. And also, trying to do something about it now is far more likely to create a more favorable opportunity down the road than doing nothing.

With an opportunity as blatant and powerful as the revelations regarding the Hughes Amendment, if 2A supporters let it pass by we may as well accept total defeat.

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Now, I personally believe Hughes is patently silly. All it did was create a new class of investments (pre-1986 auto stuff).

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Patently silly? That's the understatement of the year. The Second Amendment does not have a clause saying that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, except for very effective arms, like the ones the military uses.