The Hughes Amendment Explained: How a 1986 Voice Vote Banned New Machine Guns for Americans

The Hughes Amendment Explained: How a 1986 Voice Vote Banned New Machine Guns for Americans

On the morning of April 10, 1986, the U.S. House of Representatives chamber buzzed with exhaustion and political scheming. Lawmakers had been debating the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA), a bill long championed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a corrective to decades of alleged Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) overreach. The legislation promised to ease interstate gun sales, protect travelers carrying guns across s…

Machine Gun Ban – 710am KURV

Owning an assault rifle is not enough for one gun group in Texas, which is fighting to overturn a ban on machine guns. A lawsuit filed by the Temple Gun Club argues that the nationwide ban, approved by Congress, was an “unnecessary, improper usurpation of power.” And the drafters of the Constitution, they say, included a direct prohibition on infringing upon “the right to keep and bear Arms.”