“The entire first mistake is in accepting the gungrabber’s premise that ANY guns should be banned, except for 50 cal machine guns, which already are.”
Why?
Well, if you look in Section 8 of Article 1 of the COTUS, you will find among the powers of the Congress the ability to give individual citizens “Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” Well, you may say, WTF are those? They are, basically, the right to act as a privateer on behalf of the United States, which necessarily includes taking on merchant and naval forces of foreign nations. The Continental Congress granted such Letters, as did the US Congress during the War of 1812 (and, quite possibly, as late as WW2). Now, how does one take on foreign naval forces without the aid of modern military equipment? You don’t. Back in the 1700s and 1800s, it meant that the individual in question would own a ship AND CANNON. Today, it would necessarily mean having automatic weapons, including automatic cannons...well, it would, but for the gross infringement of the 2nd Amendment that is the entire 1934 National Firearms Act.
I’m sure you’re right. I mentioned machine guns because that was my only exposure. In my former auction business a client had a machine gun, still in the crate, packed in cosmolene in his basement. We called the Feds, turned it over, and that was it.