Almost two years ago, the State of Texas filed suit against the federal government (still pending) claiming that since Obamacare's individual mandate had been struck down as unconstitutional (fuck you, Justice Kennedy), the gummint lacks any power to enforce it and therefore all of Obamacare is null and void. Now it looks as if that tactic has legs in the RKBA world.
Some random dude got popped for unlawful possession of a machine gun. He filed for dismissal on Constitutional grounds, claiming that since the 1986 Firearm Owner's Protection Act (the infamous Hughes Amendment) prohibits the transfer of any full-automatic weapon manufactured after 19 May, 1986; and because the BATF's only tool of enforcement of the code it thru taxation; then the fact that no future machine guns can be taxed means that neither does the BATF have any power to regulate them. Therefore the 1986 FOPA is unenforceable and unconstitutional.
It's the exact same argument Texas was making about Obamacare, only applied to the BATF.
The Feds dropped the charges!!!
This echoes the claim made by Rock Island Armory in 1991 when they got their butt in a crack in the years immediately following the signing of the 1986 FOPA for manufacturing machine gun parts. Except the complexion of SCOTUS is vastly different today than it was in 1991 (when Slick Willie Klinton was whoremonger-in-chief), and RKBA is on much firmer footing thanks to the Heller decision.
DOJ Dismisses Indictment of Machine Gun Prosecution to Preserve Its Obamacare Arguments
So we might be witnessing the beginning of the end for the Hughes Amendment. And it's clutching at straws to think they can sacrifice the Hughes Amendment to preserve Obamacare because I have little doubt but that Obamacare will be repealed in Trump's second term because control of the House also will be restored to the Republican party.
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Originally Posted by Beetlegeuse
