West Virginia Bill Would Allow State To Sell Machine Guns to the Public

Several states control liquor through state run stores. Now, West Virginia is considering something similar for fully automatic firearms. State lawmakers are considering legislation that would set up a state office to procure and sell machine guns to the general public.Two Senators introduced the Public Defense and Provisioning Act on Monday to set up mechanisms for the legal transfers of automatic weapons to citizens of the state.Republican state senators Chris Rose and Zack Maynard are using language buried in a decades-old federal statute that allows the transfer of machine guns by the state to private citizens as the basis for their proposal.The federal Hughes Amendment — included in 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act — currently restricts civilians from owning or transferring machine guns made after 1986 unless they are facilitated by a state. The proposed law would set up an Office of Public Defense inside the state police to coordinate such sales.The West Virginia law would add a $250 surcharge for weapons purchases. Anyone who buys a permitted machine gun would be allowed to resell it to another person for a $275 fee.A Second Amendment group, Gun Owners of America, helped the lawmakers craft the bill. It says the bill would pass the hurdle the Supreme Court set up to require gun laws to be in alignment with historical tradition. The organization says governments have sold military arms to the civilian populace since its founding. “For decades, Americans have been told that the 1986 machine gun ban permanently stripped them of access to modern arms. But Congress included an explicit exemption for transfers ‘to or by’ a State, and that language matters,” the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, Erich Pratt, said in a release. “West Virginia is demonstrating that states have both the authority and the responsibility to defend the Second Amendment, restore parity between citizens and the government, and lead the way in dismantling unconstitutional federal overreach.”The Department of Justice also stated that the transfer of weapons by the federal government is legal in a June 2025 filing related to New Jersey v. Bondi, a case involving a trigger that was formerly classified as an illegal machine gun.West Virginia ranks third in the nation for percentage of households that own guns, and has some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. The Mountain State does not require concealed handgun licenses for residents at least 21 years old, and lawmakers are currently debating a bill that would lower the age to 18 for concealed weapons. The bill has already cleared the state senate.The state also has reciprocity agreements with other states that allow citizens who live in other states to legally carry weapons in West Virginia.

West Virginia Bill Would Allow State To Sell Machine Guns to the Public

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