title II firearms

[photoguy67]

I am NOT a legal expert so I am putting this out there for those that understand the law a lot more than me. I have been wanting to challenge the May 19, 1986 law banning the future manufacture of machine guns for civilian use, but I have no idea how to go about it. I have talked to a few people that are supposed have an understanding of the court systems and they say I have to show "damage" ie.. get arrested. In short, I believe that the law is totally unconstitutional and would not hold up in court. Can anyone tell me how to go about it? I have contacted the NRA but all they would do is give me a list of attorneys.
Thanks for any pointers.

[johnharris]

Generally, the law requires that a lawsuit, such as you contemplate, involve a plaintiff who has "standing." In the context of the Class III weapons, there are a couple of options and this certainly is not an exhaustive list.

1) An individual could identify a post-1986 Class III that they would like to purchase, get the cooperation of the owner and submit a Form 4 asking permission to register it. That application would be denied, but it then gives standing.

2) An alternative may be to find a post-1986 item that you would like to purchase, and write to the ATF seeking an formal opinion on whether you could purchase it. This would avoid the application fee on the Form 4 but would probably yield the same result.

Now, how to fund such an action and which legal team to rely upon. This issue, while certainly one of merit, has clearly not had the level of academic analysis that was available to the Court in the Heller decision. A place to start would be in seeking out the academic analysis on this issue to see how sound the arguments are.

[photoguy67]

[johnharris]

Well, the 1st step is not necessarily seeking new works but researching existing works and literature to see what already exists. Some of this could be done online for free because there are significant public domain 2nd Amendment literature. For example

http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ll.htm

http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/2nd_index.htm

http://www.guncite.com/2ndlawlib.html

http://www.loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.php

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q ... VkMWExNGU=

Once sufficient base research is done that should establish the extent to which the matter has already been addressed by the courts and/or the academics. From that point, new research topics or arguments can then be framed. Then, organizations, such as the NRA, SAF, and perhaps even TFA, could sponsor scholarship awards for papers written on the topic.