While we sat in the lecture hall waiting for the crowd to arrive and settle in, as is my wont I was listening to the conversations around me. The students who come to these things are usually pretty political and motivated, so you can hear interesting stuff - to include civil conversations between liberal and conservative students.

A conversation behind me turned to the subject of firearms, with the usual earnestness associated therein.

So of course I had to interject myself. Mark, the very nice and polite student arguing for the Gun Banners, got my attention when he told his conversational adversary "We're just a few elections away from being able to confiscate all those handguns and rifles. We've already gotten the machineguns, we're going to get everything else, soon. Except maybe hunting guns."

I turned around at that point and asked - "Are you going to compensate me for them? Or just take them and tell me I should be happy I'm not in jail?" That startled him - mostly that someone else was listening, methinks. He stammered "Well, uh, yes, I guess we should have some form of compensation, er, um... " Clearly, he'd thought his nefarious plan through. I let that drop.

I countered with, "Why do you think you've 'gotten the machineguns'?" He responded, "It's illegal to own a machinegun in this country."

"No, it isn't. It's illegal in Kansas, to be sure, as the result of a law passed in 1934 because of something that happened in Missouri, between gangsters and Federal agents, two groups *unaffected* by the law, but it's not illegal federally to own a machinegun. In Missouri it's illegal to own a machinegun that is less than 50 years old or not on the NFA Curio and Relic list, but it's patently legal otherwise. In fact, come to think of it, in Kansas, it's technically legal to own a federally-recognized machinegun, too - just not one that is functional. However, registered DEWATs are legal, specifically exempted in the law. I assure you, sir - as a collector, I keep up with the law on the subject."

"No, no - I'm sure you're wrong. We banned [note the us of "we"] machineguns back in the 80's!"

Heh. "No, the law President Reagan signed in 1984 banned the manufacture of new weapons for sale to anyone other than governmental entities, or private security operations operating under a government mandate. It also "closed" the NFA registry to new additions. For example, the sub-machinegun Uncle Bill brought back from Korea but was never entered into the NFA registry. There was a two year 'amnesty' period where those weapons could be made legal, but after 1986 all you can do if you find one is call law enforcement and have them come pick it up, or make arrangements for an accredited museum to accept it. But it's still perfectly legal to own 'em. In fact, I can't remember Colorado's laws, but machineguns are legal in Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska, to name a few states around here. Been a lot of machineguns used in crime around here, too, huh?

Unable to argue from a position of knowledge, he essentially let the subject drop - though I'm sure he still had doubts. So, I open up email this morning and I find this, from JTG, which inspired this post:

Just the Thing for those Annoying Golfers.

Hi there!

See this: http://www.ccfa.com/MK19.htm

Snork.

All the best, Tregonsee [Aka, JTG].

Okay, I admit it. I want one. But not that badly. Danged expensive to feed, that monster.

In fact, those guys have *several* items of interest at the moment.