Court challenge to the NFA
Several years ago, Nick Bronsozian was charged with possession of an unregistered machinegun under a tax law statute. The provision in question, 26 U.S.C. 5861(d), says that in order to have a machinegun registered, a tax must be paid on it. Simple enough, right? Bronsozian didnt pay his tax. Case closed. Thats what the government argued anyway, but the situation is more complicated than that.
A subsequently enacted law, 18 U.S.C. 922(o), prevents the government from registering and accepting tax payments on new machineguns. So Bronsozian was charged and convicted of a felony for not paying a tax that the government would not allow him to pay. If that strikes you as odd, its probably because youve read the Constitution.
Read the whole thing.
June 26th, 2019 at 5:35 pm
It will be interesting to see where this one goes.
June 27th, 2019 at 4:09 am
Sounds like the catch-22 that the AZ Dept of Revenue had on reefer decades ago.
You were supposed to buy the required tax stamp for your illicit MJ but in order to get the tax stamp, you had to show you had the illegal weed and were forced to incriminate yourself.
That one got struck down by the courts.
June 27th, 2019 at 7:01 am
KM,
TN had that same model and I believe it was ruled unconstitutional.
I don’t see that happening with the NFA or the Hugh’s amendment since the government is routinely hypocritical about these things.
June 27th, 2019 at 6:04 pm
Taxing power of Congress is what kept Obamacare alive. If taxation can be manipulated that far, it can be wrapped around a simple gun ban without much effort.
June 29th, 2019 at 10:18 am
Anything that guts the Hughes Amendment is a good thing.
Republicans had 2 years to SOMETHING for gun owners and squandered it. I’m starting to wonder if it’s time for a new party. Republicans replaced Whigs, maybe it’s time for something to supplant Republicans.
July 1st, 2019 at 10:03 am
Mike V., i could go for that if we extend it to both the major parties. they’ve both fallen into a pattern of promising the moon and delivering nothing but the same-ol’ same-ol’, time after time.
which, you might argue, was much of why Trump got elected. still remains to be seen if that fact taught the dems a single damn thing.