Repeal the NFA and the Hughes amendment

[Yournamehere]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

Maybe we should also do away with speed limits, because if I want to fucking drive 110 through a school zone, I should be allowed to. I have no real need to do so because a 25 MPH limit doesn't actually stop me from getting to my destination, but, hey, if it can be done, we should all be allowed to do it, right?

This is hardly an analogous argument. Speeding is an restriction on using a piece of equipment to its potential for the sake of safety of operation in any given area with any given amount of traffic or pedestrians, not the barring of possession of said piece of equipment. You can own a Ferarri, but you're only permitted to do 15 when you're in a school zone during school hours, and 45 on the road normally, and you risk getting a ticket and eventually losing your rights to drive if you do not comply. The NFA and Hughes Amendment tell us that we can't own said Ferrari, or machine gun, because we are liable to speed all the time, or kill all the time, or perhaps fire machine guns close to other people with the potential to hurt or kill someone with a stray round, whatever you feel is the more analogous action. And just in a personal sense, I have been irritated by a lot of arbitrary speed limits from driving down here for my job or just for traveling at night. I can't count the number of times I've been on empty roads at night with 25MPH limits where I know that physically I can drive faster and still maintain safety for myself and the drivers that would be, but aren't around me, but I still do it because I presume that big brother Johnny Law is right behind a bush in his brand new Charger waiting to give me a ticket to get a little closer to his quota. That annoys me, and it should.

In any case, there's no proof or even logical indication that machine gun availability would change anything. I don't really think that if everyone who owned an AR-15 right now dropped a giggle switch in the thing at this very moment that there would be a monumental spike in crime and death. For one thing, people aren't that crazy, even if the anti gunners want us to think that way. And practically speaking, there isn't correlation in automatic fire being a key factor in determining the death toll in a mass shooting or shooting in general. If that were the case, then North Hollywood would have been a bloodbath and Virginia Tech would have not been the deadliest mass shooting in US history up until the Orlando Nightclub. There are a myriad of circumstances that play into any incident that result in the final casualty toll, from number of assailants, skills and tactics, to motivations and the response of other armed persons to the threat. Changing the weapons used doesn't always slide the scale one way or the other. At the end of the day, however, the regulation definitely, one hundred percent, impedes on the law abiding citizens ability to exercise a facet of their given freedom, when it doesn't necessarily, or perhaps even coincidentally, serve to provide any positive result in exchange for giving up said freedom, and that is not logically sound to me. Moreover, you can still own machine guns and suppressors and all that stuff, you just have to be rich, so in reality it's plutocratic and draconian at the same time, which even further devalues the prohibition of such items in the first place.

And again, just to reiterate, I'm not opposed to a degree of regulation, it just has to make sense, which Hughes and the NFA do not, at least in the sense that they restrict without reason or consistency within their own logic. They really are just arbitrary acts that prohibit or heavily restrict the acquisition of specific spooky items, but are just this side of being a full on ban to not be a black and white definite infringement. The problem, though, is that their requirements are so needlessly stringent and poorly enforced and enacted, even, that they do constitute an infringement, solely because they do definitely limit our freedom for no well conceived legitimate reason, and so they should not be a thing.

[Excalibur]

To be fair, the constitution doesn't actually give us the right to the road. We can drive where ever the state allows us to. If they set up a road block, construction, etc. We can't go there because the road doesn't belong to us. We can own a car but the roads do not belong to us. We don't have a civil right to drive on the roads. We do have a right to own arms.

[SPEMack618]

Sorry, got bent out of shape after misreading something. No ill will intended.

And to be honest, I'm okay if the ATF wants to keep a registry/tax machines guns. Scrap the Hughes Amendment, bump the tax stamp down to like $5, and also keep the finger printing.

All the other junk of the NFA needs to go away concerning SBS, SBR, and AOW. And maybe that way the ATF will worry more about how twice convicted felons in Chicago are getting Hi-Points and P-85s instead of killing farmers and scoutmasters over sawed off shotguns.

[Yournamehere]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

Sorry, got bent out of shape after misreading something. No ill will intended.

And to be honest, I'm okay if the ATF wants to keep a registry/tax machines guns. Scrap the Hughes Amendment, bump the tax stamp down to like $5, and also keep the finger printing.

All the other junk of the NFA needs to go away concerning SBS, SBR, and AOW. And maybe that way the ATF will worry more about how twice convicted felons in Chicago are getting Hi-Points and P-85s instead of killing farmers and scoutmasters over sawed off shotguns.

I completely concur. I never want to wait another 8 months for a tax stamp again.

[S&Wshooter]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

I'm okay if the ATF wants to keep a registry/tax machines guns. Scrap the Hughes Amendment, bump the tax stamp down to like $5, and also keep the finger printing.

Give 'em an inch, they'll take 500 square miles, your dog, and your sister's butt virginity

You can't trust the government to not use any infringement you allow them to slowly but surely dismantle your rights

[StanTheMan]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

To be fair, the constitution doesn't actually give us the right to the road. We can drive where ever the state allows us to. If they set up a road block, construction, etc. We can't go there because the road doesn't belong to us. We can own a car but the roads do not belong to us. We don't have a civil right to drive on the roads. We do have a right to own arms.

Indeed. Unlike firearms where there are some you simply cannot buy period, you can practically buy any conveyance from a skateboard to a Scion to a Cessna, but you've no right to their use outside any private property without meeting certain requirements, rules, and regulations as proscribed. And that can be so with little argument against because there really is no particular enumerated constitutional right to driving/flying/skateboarding/etc, let alone that such acts 'shall not be infringed'. Apples and oranges.

And yes, I too agree with the rather simplistic and even crass statement of 'it's the bill of rights, not the bill of needs'. Granted yes it can be argued nobody 'needs' machine guns. Hell it can be argued most people don't 'need' guns at all. Just like nobody 'needs' alcohol, triple chocolate cake, 500+HP cars or swimming pools, yet all of those are out in abundance, available to practically anyone, and almost all of those contribute to killing more people on average every year than guns. Again, though, unlike all those, firearms are enumerated as a supposedly inalienable right. When you start getting into an argument about 'need', I immediately start asking "Why does it have to be a question of 'need'? And even then, who decides said 'needs'?" In regards to the later, for myself, if it ain't me, then frankly, piss off. If I wanted someone else to decide what I 'needed' to that level, I'd be communist. I get the point about reason, but to be blunt, inalienable rights aren't really 'reasonable'. At least not like that.

That said, probably clear by now I'm with SPEMack and Yournamehere pretty much.. I'd say more but YNH got it all and then some. Honestly I'd be happy with just repealing Hughes as that was/is totally arbitrary as fuck, not even any lip service to it actually making a difference unlike the original NFA. Of course very doubtful either has any effect in actuality as illustrated anyway, but still. I don't mind baby steps if they actually step in a better direction. Realistically though I doubt the NFA will go anywhere, Hughes might be a different story. Yet it fell short by 3000 or so signatures. Bah. I get going after the 'big fish' but maybe rather than do so directly, perhaps the better way towards that is by getting all the smaller fish and starving it. That means these other laws and regs, getting in reps at all levels that will support your rights and fight any undue infringements on said rights, and so forth. Real progress takes time.

That said, I'll add that I think BATFE, if not done away with (again, most doubtful) oughta be shrunk down and perhaps rolled into FBI or some other agency.. Meh, I just think they could do with some kind of curtailment - all they've proved over the years is that they're inept cowboys itchin' for action because they can't just sit there and be glorified tax men like they should be. Most alcohol and tobacco taxes are done by state and FBI does the background checks for firearms anyway. All-told I don't see the need to be their own entity in all honesty. At least not how they've operated over the years.