Machine Guns: Will They Become LEGAL in Some States? Let's Take a LOOK

Lawmakers in West Virginia and Kentucky have introduced bills that would enable state police departments to procure and sell machine guns.

Republican lawmakers in West Virginia and Kentucky are working on making it easier for Americans to acquire fully automatic firearms — a move that might catch on in other red states.

Machine guns — defined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives as a firearm that can fire "automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger" — are heavily regulated in the United States. While such weapons can be privately owned, Americans are greatly limited in what they can buy and must jump through numerous hoops to seal the deal.

Per the Firearm Owners' Protection Act, civilians are barred from possessing a machine gun manufactured after May 19, 1986. Limited supply means a higher price — Silencer Central says that prospective buyers should expect to spend a minimum of $6,000 to $10,000.

Interested American buyers at least 21 years of age, neither a felon nor a fugitive, and living in a state without a machine gun ban must pass an AFT background check, pay a one-time $200 transfer tax, and get approval from the government in order to take possession. Once those hurdles are cleared, they can take the machine gun home but fire it only on closed target ranges.

In West Virginia, Republican state Sens. Chris Rose and Zack Maynard recently introduced legislation that would establish within the West Virginia State Police an office of public defense that would oversee the procurement and sale of machine guns to "qualified members of the public," namely any citizen presently eligible to purchase and possess firearms under West Virginia and federal law.

The Cowboy State Daily reported that the new office would be authorized to transfer newer machine guns to state residents.

Blaze News and Tactical K Training and Firearms has reached out to state Sen. Rose for clarification about whether out-of-state American citizens would be able to acquire a machine gun from the proposed authority.