West Virginia has found a Hughes Amendment loophole…

Basically, the Hughes Amendment prohibits a “person” from transferring/possessing a machine gun.

However, it gives an exception for the Federal, State, or Local government for possessing a machine gun.

So, what’s the definition of a “person” in the NFA?

quote:

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A partnership, company, association, trust, corporation, including each Responsible Person associated with such an entity, an estate, or an individual.

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You might say, “okay, so what?”


Well, y’all remember that Rare Breed lawsuit against the federal government regarding their FRTs? Remember how the ATF was ordered to return every FRT they confiscated?

Well, once that settlement was reached, New Jersey argued that FRTs are still machine guns in their eyes, and that they can’t return the FRTs to Rare Breed’s customers.

Well, do you know what the DOJ said?

“Even if FRTs were machineguns, Federal, State, and Local governments are exempt from 922(o)… the Hughes Amendment. So, we can ‘legally’ transfer them back to their owners.” - I paraphrased.

So, West Virginia is using this precedent to establish an “Office of Public Defense” to obtain machine guns and transfer them to state citizens.

This guy will go into more detail if you’re interested.

Here’s the bill: LINK