Recently, a federal judge did something I never thought I’d see. He ruled that the ban on machine guns was unconstitutional.

Of course, I agree. I just didn’t think a judge would see it that way at any point in my lifetime. The judge even addressed the “in common use” thing, though he took an approach I wouldn’t have, arguing that with something like 640,000 in circulation, that counts as common use. (I’d have argued that they can’t be in common use when they’ve been banned, which is weird since both are accurate.)

Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects freaked out. As a result, we get editorials like this one:

“The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged because they are ‘bearable arms’ within the original meaning of the amendment,” Broomes wrote. 

The judge, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, may be legally in the right — there is no federal machine gun ban in 2024, and no state ban in Missouri or Kansas — but for decades, these guns have been restricted and outlawed and for good reason. 

We need a federal automatic weapons ban, and state bans of these weapons with no restrictions. 

Look, we get it, Americans love their guns. But Morgan was found with an AR-15-style machine gun and a “Glock switch” — a device that easily allows a semiautomatic handgun to be used as an automatic — according to court documents. These modified weapons do not belong on our streets. There is a reason there are laws banning the import of such dangerous devices. 

Now would be the time for gun safety advocates — and like-minded politicians — to remind people no one is seriously proposing to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens. Nor should responsible gun lovers fret about infringement on their right to bear arms for self-defense or recreational purposes. But high-powered weapons capable of firing many, many rounds in seconds have no place in a civilized society. 

Yet between 2017 and 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments across the country, according to federal officials. That is a lot of firepower readily available for anyone to commit a mass shooting.

They really don’t read their own stuff before hitting publish, do they?

There’s a ban on machine guns. They’re the most heavily restricted weapons in the country, with a heavily controlled supply that cannot be increased lawfully, and yet there’s been a 570% increase in machine guns in the hands of criminals? Clearly, the ban isn’t working. The conversion devices are legal nowhere in this country. You can’t get them lawfully, and yet these things keep showing up in criminal hands.

Now, I suspect the numbers aren’t as high as being suggested here. If there was just one recovered in one year and 57 four years later, that’s a 570% increase but not much of an issue in a nation of 330 million people and an estimated 400 million firearms.

But what the machine gun ban does is make it so we can’t meet criminal firepower on anything close to equal footing. If we anger the local gang, we might find ourselves having to fight for our lives with one hand tied behind our backs because they can send more rounds our way faster than we can theirs.

Should we use a machine gun for self-defense? That’s a different topic entirely. That’s something people should be able to decide for themselves, but with select-fire weapons on the table in the discussion, I don’t see it as an either/or thing.

Criminals, however, have been getting full-auto weapons through various means for decades. If the ban worked, that wouldn’t be the case.

If it doesn’t, then why restrict the rights of law-abiding people?

The idea that criminals might get something when they’re already getting it just doesn’t sound the least bit convincing.