guns

Better turn them in at the gun buybacks just to be sure

Hi there, would you like to sign my petition?

Probably not directly, but if you ran it to a joulegthief style boost converter you could probably charge a super-cap or even a small battery, and use that to run the dot for long enough.

Depends on the number of potatoes I'm sure.

OK a note; as I was writing this I realized it's very pedantic, and I agree with the point you're making... But I really wanna share info about how weird the NFA is and how much the ATF sucks... So please excuse me:

I don't think a bent clothes hanger can be registered as a machine gun... Unless this happened in 1986?

Tl;Dr only machine guns from before the 1986 FOPA can be registered as a machine gun via the NFA taxes.

The NFA was enacted by congress in 1934, and was designed give the government some way of regulating firearms without infringement (so the laws would be constitutional given the 2nd amendment).

Congress wanted it back then because there was a fear of concealed pistols being used for organized crime during the era of alchohol prohibition. Of course by the time the bill had been passed, pistols had been removed because there were too many interested parties in the firearms industry, and they are not NFA items to this day. Short barreled rifles (firearms with either a "stock" or "vertical" foregrip, and a barrel length (measured from the chamber and including any permanent muzzle devices) under 16"), short barreled shotguns (similar, but the length limitation is 18"), and "Any Other Weapons" which are otherwise concealable weapons that aren't a pistol were the regulated firearms in that original NFA. Also "Silencers" were added last minute as an afterthought.

NFA items require a stamp to be legally possessed, and the cost of the tax to acquire the stamp was set at $200 because at the time that was a substantial portion of the cost of a firearm like the Thompson Sub-Machine gun. That value of $200 remained unchanged from 1934 until 23 days ago on January 1st, 2026, when it was changed to $0 by the Big Beautiful (🤢) Bill.

Later congress would empower the ATF to enforce it.

The NFA doesn't violate the 2nd amendment (given the interpretation of the constitution by the judges in america for over 100 years, regardless of whether we like or agree with it) because it's a set of taxes, not a prohibition.

In 1986 a the Firearms Owners Protection Act was enacted by congress which sincerely gave firearms owners many protections and freedoms, like being able to purchase ammunition via the mail... But as a concession it also classified machine guns (any firearm that can fire multiple rounds via a single activation of the trigger) as NFA items, and prohibited the registration of any future machine guns. There was a brief grace window where things could be registered as machine guns (such as RDIAS or registered drop-in auto seers) and if someone registered a clothes hanger as a machine gun, it would have been then. I'll explain why an unassuming object can be considered a machine gun later.

The prohibition on registering modern machine guns is not unconstitutional because of either one of two things: you can still own a machine gun, it just has to be old (this is unacceptable to many firearms rights activists and politicians, and would likely be unconstitutional on its own) and/or technically no firearm, including machine guns or any other NFA item, is illegal in the first place. You can circumvent the NFA by paying annual taxes and registering to be an FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee) with a (particular) SOT (Special Ocupationers Tax) license. That allows you to buy, sell, and possibly create (depending on licensing) any firearm you want.

It should also be noted, the ATF gets to decide what counts when it comes to any NFA item, which leads to some shenanigans.

A "firearm" can technically be almost any serialized part on the gun... It doesn't have to be the barrel or whatever... So on guns like the Sig P320 and the Ruger RXM, just a small piece of metal is serialized and the entire gun around it can be changed without any additional transfers or background checks.

For machine guns, anything that can be readily converted into a machine gun IS a machine gun according to the ATF, so essentially all open bolt guns count. Also if you own a semiautomatic AR15 and also possess an M16 (the AR15 used by the military) fire control group (trigger) you are technically in the possession of a machine gun, regardless of whether or not those parts can actually be put inside that firearm.

Also, in the case of the RDIAS that I mentioned earlier, the ATF consideres the small component to be a machine gun, not the firearm itself. If someone wanted to stick a bent clothes hanger in an AR15 so that it interacts with the fire control group in some funky way causing multiple rounds to be fired per activation of a trigger, it could have been registered as an RDIAS in 1986.

And of course, as you may have assumed by my earlier use of quotation marks, the laws regarding short barreled rifles can be circumvented by using slightly differently shaped "Braces" instead of stocks, and slightly angled foregrips.

Also, the ATF, who are ostensibly a tax enforcement agency, have killed a lot of people and a lot of dogs. See Ruby Ridge and Waco (keep in mind that there are many narratives around those events, and sources that cite the actual documentation and legal proceedings might be better).

If you read all of that, thank you for entertaining my hyperfixation. If I made any mistakes please tell me... I wrote this while stuck on the can.

Taking a silencer on a plane is perfectly legal. Taking a potato is very much illegal. They’d make you eat it or otherwise dispose of it in the airport.