This Court Case Could Blow a Grand Canyon-Sized Hole Through Federal Gun Laws

The claim that machine guns fall outside the scope of the second amendment is ridiculous and I am amazed that the DOJ is grasping at that straw rather than acknowledging that machine guns DO fall within the second amendment and pointing out that there is no federal law against qualified persons owning a machine gun.

The crime that Bridges has been charged with is not possession of a machine gun, but possession of an unregistered machine gun -- basically a tax-evasion crime rather than a gun crime.

Bridges' crime is that he didn't file a Form 4 and pay the tax on his machine gun. Of course, if the case were to go that direction it would open questions about the constitutionality of the Hughes Amendment and whether the penalties for "possession of an unregistered machine gun" are cruel and unusual punishment for failing to pay a $200 tax (which might be why DOJ wants to avoid talking about that side of the case).

The case may eventually reach SCOTUS but don't count on the support of the major "pro-gun" organizations along the way. Most of those organizations are beholden to their major donors -- and a lot of those major donors own machine guns. You might think that machine gun owners would support eliminating the onerous regulations on their machine guns, but you have to realize that most private owners of machine guns view them as investments not as guns to shoot. Deregulation of machine guns, or even the simple repeal of the Hughes Amendment, would significantly reduce the value of their collections.

Why don't they outlaw communist's?