I mean, his name is Broomes.

Democrats are slow to learn this essential fact. The right wingers have known for decades.

…. with the majority of American people and that demographics doom them to the trash can
of history so they have been putting right wingers on the courts to keep power. After Karl Rove
stole Ohio in 2004 two women from the Cuyahoga County BOE were arrested, indicted, and
convicted of rigging the recount and sentenced to prison but their convictions were dropped
by a republican judge and they walked free.

It was just a matter of time till a case got put in front of a compliant judge.

I guess a 90-year-old law (National Firearms Act of 1934) isn't consistent with the nations' historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Soon we'll be at Firearm Ubiquity. Only then can the Gundamentalists rest.

Last edited Sat Aug 24, 2024, 05:33 PM - Edit history (1)

They are regulated.

Most everyone here at DU can legally own one.

under Federal law, which effectively constitute a 'ban' for most normal people, but not technically a 'ban' in a legal sense ??

(about $3,000 was the last number I saw quoted by some internet poster)

So this judge is trying to throw out the legal requirements for owning an automatic weapon (machine gun),
as not allowed under the 2nd Amendment? (blah blah blah)

That's it. Certain states may require more, but on the federal level, the license isn't expensive at all. It's been $200 since the 1930's, because $200 was considered cost prohibitive back then, but it's never been updated to keep up with inflation.

What costs big money is the gun itself. No new legally transferable machine guns have been allowed into circulation since 1986, so even the newest ones are 38 years old at this point. Even the cheapest legal machine gun costs $20,000, with some costing well into the hundreds of thousands.

Some states and locales prohibit them. I'll update my post to make clear the federal govt doesn't ban the possession of machine guns.

According to the CDC, in 2022 there were over 48,000 firearms-related deaths in the US.

Source:

https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html

Handguns should be banned. But the chances of that happening in this gun-humping country is practically nil.

Almost 3 per-state F6CKING DAILY!!!! I blame repukes and their inbred hate culture fed by their religious kookery.

You are spot on. Thanks to the GOP, the NRA, and ALEC, the US suffers wartime casualties in the Homeland without having to step foot into Pashtunistan or Iraq.

Est. total US KIA in Vietnam (~1965-1975 = 58,000. As the CDC reported, America is at 48,000 KIA per annum from internal firearms violence. When does the US reach 58,000 per year?

By contrast to our immediate north, in 2021 the entire country of Canada (40m people) suffered 297 total victims of firearms-related homicide, a rate of 0.78 per 100,000 population.

Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-005-x/2022001/article/00002-eng.htm

never mind that the first modern machine gun wasn't invented until 1892....

come to think of it, the historical experts on the court don't seem to confine themselves to american history, so the machine gun went without a ban for millennia prior to 1934. so clearly by their logic, the weight of history is that it shouldn't be banned.

Although not labeled as a "machine gun", it was the next best thing---

(although not an "automatic" by modern standards since you had to turn a crank to keep firing,
the effect was much the same).

Not saying you are wrong, but there is a caveat here.

Before they were even a thing.

Purpose and interpretation of terms. We need to sue every governor who authorizes open carry because that doesn't demonstrate well regulated. Neither does the population having access to weaponry meant for the militias. Get a definition for militia. This misapplication of gun rights is ridiculous.

And it is inconsistent with this ruling by a Trump-appointed Judge.

****************

Certainly! Let's discuss machine guns and their legal status.

At the federal level in the United States, machine guns are indeed legal, but they are highly regulated. This regulation dates back to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), which was enacted as part of the Internal Revenue Code. Here are some key points:

1. **Regulation**: Machine guns fall under the NFA's purview, which means their manufacture, transfer, and ownership are subject to strict rules.

2. **Ban on New Machine Guns**: Since 1986, the manufacture or importation of new machine guns for civilian sale has been prohibited. Existing machine guns that were legally owned before this ban can still be possessed by civilians.

3. **Historical Context**: The recent ruling by a federal judge in Kansas has questioned whether bans on machine guns violate the Second Amendment. The judge dismissed machine gun possession charges against an individual, citing that the Second Amendment applies to these weapons as "bearable arms." However, this ruling is likely to be appealed.

4. **Controversy**: Some argue that this decision is unprecedented and inconsistent with previous Supreme Court rulings. Others believe that machine gun bans are crucial for public safety, especially given the rise in shootings involving converted automatic weapons.

In summary, while machine guns are technically legal, their ownership is highly restricted, and new civilian sales are prohibited. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask! 😊

Source: Conversation with Copilot, 8/23/2024
(1) Kansas judge throws out machine gun possession charge, cites Second Amendment. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kansas-judge-throws-out-machine-gun-possession-charge-cites-second-amendment/ar-AA1pkguF.
(2) Kansas judge throws out machine gun possession charge, cites Second .... https://apnews.com/article/machine-guns-court-ruling-kansas-a15526435c94d896d308fc21571811ce.
(3) US judge tosses machine gun possession case, calls ban unconstitutional. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-judge-tosses-machine-gun-150600067.html.
(4) Federal judge tosses Kansas machine gun possession case on Second Amendment grounds. https://news.yahoo.com/news/federal-judge-tosses-kansas-machine-210138469.html.
(5) Yes, Machine Guns Are 'Legal' (But Here Comes All the Catches). https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/yes-machine-guns-are-legal-here-comes-all-catches-163921.
(6) Machine Guns & 50 Caliber Weapons | GIFFORDS. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/machine-guns-50-caliber/.

People being shot is just an inconvenient side effect.

I can’t wait to buy my very own M-2 .50 cal!

Machine guns fall into a class of firearms called Title III weapons, after the section of the National Firearms Act that regulates their possession. I can go to a store and buy one. Most of us here could. There’s a lot of paperwork you have to file, a background check so the government feels confident you’re not going to use it against other people and a $200 transfer tax - which in 1934 was pretty severe but in my case is a day’s pay - plus thanks to a Republican president named George HW Bush you can’t buy one made after 1986 so these weapons are very expensive, but if you are a honest upstanding person with enough money you can buy a machine gun. Of course, if you buy one you’re going to have to clean the fucking thing but you can get one.

The historical precedent for this regulation is the Chicago gang wars of the Prohibition era. In the 1920s it was simpler to buy a machine gun than a pistol, so submachineguns (machine guns that fire pistol cartridges) were the weapons of choice for people like Al Capone’s crew. They don’t call the Thompson “the gun that made the Twenties roar” for nothing. You could buy these mail order and have them sent to your home. After Prohibition the government worked hard to keep that from happening again.

What they busted this asshole for was having an unregistered machine gun, and there’s a lot of historical precedent for that.

Is you can't get any made after 1986. That's why they're so insanely expensive now.

I'd much rather have suppressors be taken off the NFA as those have actual benefits for hearing. It's often easier to get one in Europe than the USA for that reason.

If they couldn’t completely remove them from Title III they could pretty easily amend it to put them in the same status as Any Other Weapons - five dollars transfer tax and the same background check as buying a typical firearm.

"Glock switches" as they are known are modern Glock handguns with some sort of auto-sear that is easily installed and easily available. Affixed with a high-capacity stick or drum magazine, they've become quite common today among gangs.

a reporter that knows neither law nor guns. And yet is reporting on the intersection of law and guns.

A gun store has to have a special permit to legally sell a machine gun and I think only those made before 1985 can be sold. Some states have banned the sale of machine guns entirely.

Most gun stores are not Class III dealers, but there are some.

Just run a snake, wipe down the barrel, clean and oil the bolt and you're done. You might not even knock the scope out of alignment that way. But tubes and springs and ugh, no thanks. I'm fine with one shot at a time.

Having to scrub out several hundreds of rounds worth of carbon with nothing more than Break Free is the problem.

I want a tank, preferably a M60. The exhaust from an M1 can strip paint.

stand-your-ocean state.
😁

Federal law does not prohibit the ownership of bazookas or howitzers.

I want hand grenades !!

Getting ammo is a bit difficult as it's an explosive device.

It's a gob-smacking example of a legal word salad.

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxxbroepx/08232024kansas.pdf

As well as the prohibition on manufacturing new ones.

At least, within his jurisdiction. Which is the State of Kansas?

So anybody can now make and sell machine guns in Kansas, without regard to any ATF enforced registration law.

Got it.

...because he's an expert in acoustics & he has a contract with the Defense Department to do research on silencers. He has just about everything you can imagine, certainly everything that's used in modern warfare, he has to do detailed paperwork every year, & he literally has a walk-in bank vault in the basement of his house to store them.
The fact that some random guy can just "own a machine gun" for no legitimate purpose just blows my mind.

Last edited Sat Aug 24, 2024, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

As long as you have a clean record.

It's been that way since the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed

Not saying they ban it - they make it harder to acquire one. And frankly, it should be bloody difficult to get one.

This is getting creepy.

Curious.

Where the hell is LE on this?

Last edited Sat Aug 24, 2024, 01:34 PM - Edit history (1)

with private ownership of firearms but refers only to militias. ANY honest reading of it would come to that conclusion, and until the past few years, courts knew that, too. The NRA went off the rails in the 1970s when a crackpot named Harlon Carter and his ilk took control of the organization. Carter had once been convicted of murder as a youth against a 15-year-old, but his conviction had been overturned on a technicality. You can do a Google search on this notable crackpot. This is where the myth of the Second Amendment began.

were both thrown out ages ago by republicans. so why the fuck not.

2nd amendment has 27 words, but in maga world the first 13 are ignored.

If SCOTUS now demands that any current firearm regulation must be able to show a relationship to regulations / laws contemporaneous with the intent of the authors of the Amendment then one must assume that this same logic would also apply to all of the words and their definitions as well.

Further, since the technology necessary to permit the manufacture of automatic weapons did not exist at the time that the amendment was passed... This must mean that using the contemporaneous definitions of the all the words contained in the amendment, automatic weapons are so far beyond what could have been imagined by the framers that they would not have been recognized as being comparable to the firearms in common use at the time of the passing.

So, if 'automatic weapons' are beyond the scope of what could be possible or imagined as a 'weapon' in 1791 then the strict-constructionists must conclude that right to bear arms only applies to 'arms' in use or imagined at that time. Any other weapon, such as those made possible by newer technology, do not enjoy constitutional protection. This is because (by their belief system) the US Constitution is a document that is, in its entirety, frozen in place into the time in which it was written.

It sucks that there are so many judges who can't be that logical.

Without machine guns, Washington never would have been able to seize the airports at Yorktown and Valley Forge.