Quote of the Day
Next up, two pieces of GOA-backed legislation on machineguns were introduced to the House.
First, Rep. Jimmy Patronis’ bill; the “Firearm Freedom Act” is the first-ever bill introduced in Congress that would totally repeal the Hughes Amendment.
For those unfamiliar, the Hughes Amendment is part of the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, added via voice vote, which made machineguns after 1986 illegal to sell to anyone other than the federal government.
Rep. Patronis’ bill rights the wrong that was perpetrated on gun owners 40 years ago.
And, Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced the “Freedom From Taxes Act,” which removes the taxes from machineguns and destructive devices, which are currently subject to $200 tax stamps under the National Firearms Act.
Rep. Boebert’s bill removes the remaining taxes on items regulated by the NFA after the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” last summer, where taxes on short barreled firearms and suppressors were reduced to $0.
Erich Pratt
May 29, 2026
Machineguns Are In, RINOs Are Out! | GOA
My guess is that these are all posturing with zero chance of becoming law (or repealing law as the case may be). But still, it is fun to think about.
While I’m not a fan of machine guns*, I really want the restrictions on them removed. When machine guns are available without paperwork, cash and carry, family pack of four at Costco, is sort of my mental marker for “game over, we won.”
* Sure, if someone is paying for the ammo, there are ways to have fun with one. I just don’t see an occasion where I would have a real use for one. Sure, they would be useful in defending against fire breathing dragons. So, if there is some serious intel Daenerys Targaryen is on the prowl in my area of operations I will reconsider.
The priority needs to be severe restrictions on gun free zones. Having a gun is useless unless you can carry it.
I ran some numbers, and based on the DoT’s Value of a Statistical Life, the violent crime victimization rate expressed as a daily risk factor, and the dependency rate, I figure that in 2025, any non-prohibited person barred from keeping or bearing the arms of their choice should be due about $867 per day in compensation for the injury to their rights. That would be $54.19 per waking hour.
So, let’s suppose someone wants to establish a “gun free zone” because it is allegedly critically necessary. Fine: are you spending $54.19 or more per person within the zone, per hour, to provide them with active protection within that zone equal to or exceeding their own capability to provide for themselves and their non-bearing dependents?
Feel free to count it all up: the amortization and maintenance of the hard perimeter, the on-call and on-site armed response teams, their training budget, the checkpoints, the magnetometers and x-ray machines, the storage lockers (otherwise you have to protect them out to their cars in the parking lot), the surveillance system, the AI that is augmenting the people watching the surveillance system…
No, you don’t get to charge the people a “security fee”. The establishing authority owes them that replacement service because they deemed it necessary. The people are owed a net value in compensation.
Not providing that much replacement value? Then it’s not a valid “gun free zone” because it isn’t sensitive enough to put the money where your politics are. Putting up a sign with an insincere promise of future prosecution, conviction and penalty does not cut it.
I think back to the American 180, a .22 lr fully automatic machine gun. In that caliber, an auto rifle might be fun to have. Not really useful, but fun.
A friend made a technical out of his pickup using a totally legal gatling gun.
What Caliber?
Asking for purely reasons of curiosity.
I would be very interested if it were 12g with a 3.5” chamber.
Off the top of my head, a good use for a civilian owned machine gun (after some training) would be hog hunting/eradication on agricultural land.
Curtailing safety in the pursuit of some abstract “safety” deliverable at some unspecified time in the future is as unconstitutional as prohibiting some variety of communication because there have been many books and speeches in the last 150 years that have resulted in many people being murdered. The Constitutional arguments are the same, both for and against, and in every case the restrictions on speech have been found to be unconstitutional. If every part of the Constitution could be analyzed under the Strict Scrutiny Standard instead of the Rational Basis Test (the Non-laughable Excuse Test is a truer term), this would all go back to the states, and we could see in the laboratories of the several states which laws were effective and which were counter productive.
The other thing this post and quote reminded me of was Colonel Jeff Cooper’s validectory to the graduates of his school, Gunsight, “May all your enemies be on full auto.”
The game will never be over, because evil does not rest.
Full auto/machine guns ARE useful. If they weren’t then all the militaries on the planet would not be using them. It’s just that they aren’t very useful in one on one self defense situations. But against a mob of rioters…they would be extremely beneficial.