Second Amendment advocates in West Virginia are moving to restore the right to lawfully own a machine gun, and supporters base this push on established federal law.
Despite the 1986 Hughes Amendment banning the sale of new machine guns to private citizens, there is a carve-out. The law reserves the right for states themselves to distribute these weapons, and that’s what the Public Defense and Provisioning Act would accomplish.
Under Senate Bill 1071, the West Virginia State Police would operate the Office of Public Defense, which would sell such firearms to legally qualified residents.
2A advocate declared presumptions of a total machine gun ban are misguided
Gun Owners of America (GOA) Senior Vice President Erich Pratt noted that previous assumptions of a blanket machine gun ban are simply incorrect.
“For decades, Americans have been told that the 1986 machine gun ban permanently stripped them of access to modern arms,” he explained. “But Congress included an explicit exemption for transfers ‘to or by’ a State, and that language matters. West Virginia is demonstrating that states have both the authority and the responsibility to defend the Second Amendment, restore parity between citizens and the government, and lead the way in dismantling unconstitutional federal overreach.”
There is a basis for such an endeavor in the nation’s historical tradition
The Hughes Amendment states that its restriction “does not apply with respect to…a transfer to or by…or possession by or under the authority of” a State or its subdivisions.
The measure, if passed and signed into law, would create distribution centers operated by West Virginia. Thus, any transfers of machine guns would be perfectly legal under the 1986 law.
GOA drafted the legislation and, in a news release, proclaimed that support for such an undertaking is rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.
“Beginning with the Militia Act of 1792, and continuing with surplus military sales throughout American history, federal and state governments have repeatedly supplied military-grade arms to civilians,” the statement read.
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