Currently, newly manufactured machineguns are banned for civilian ownership thanks to an amendment slipped into the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act.

Known as the "Hughes Amendment"—named for Representative William J. Hughes, a Democrat from New Jersey—this amendment banned all civilian ownership of machineguns made after May 19, 1986.

While machineguns made and registered prior to the ban date can still be transferred, the law of supply and demand has created a massive disparity, as most ordinary Americans simply cannot afford these much sought after items.

Interestingly, though, the language of the Hughes Amendment specifies that the machinegun ban doesn't apply to the government, which includes state and local governments.

Specifically, 18 USC Section 922(o) reads:

This subsection does not apply with respect to—

a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof.

Well, we at Gun Owners of America had a thought. What if the States wanted to sell machineguns to their citizens—that is, what if they were to engage in a "transfer ... by ... a State"?

That certainly would comport with the historical tradition in the United States, where governments have sold military arms to the civilian populace since the Founding.  And, of course, arming civilians with machineguns aligns with the prefatory clause of the Second Amendment, which reads:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State."

What could be a better and more of a "well regulated Militia" than a citizenry armed with machineguns?

According to 922(o), a state government may lawfully "transfer"—that is, sell, give, loan, etc.—machineguns to ordinary citizens. And after the transfer is complete, those citizens may lawfully possess them, so long as the transfer was made by the State government.

But you don't have to take our word for it. The Department of Justice recently made the very same argument in a court filing. The case is State of New Jersey v. Bondi, which is being litigated in the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

The case involves ATF's return of Forced Reset Triggers to their original owners after a judge in Texas ruled that these triggers are not machineguns, as ATF had previously claimed. A forced reset trigger, or FRT, is a device that increases the rate of fire for semi-automatic rifles by (like the name entails) forcing the "reset" of a trigger so that a shooter can pull the trigger more quickly and thus fire more rapidly.