Of course, so were the "ban" on weapons in the AWB. For example, the AWB didn't ban the ownership of guns (requiring people to turn them in), it simply banned the new sale of such guns to civilians.
Anyway, here's some source material regarding the machine gun ban, so that people won't think I'm trying to "deceive" them. I've included enough quotes to show that as a general descriptive term, ban is accurate, but urge people who want to know the WHOLE truth to read the entire referenced article.
It has been unlawful since 1934 (The National Firearms Act) for civilians to own machine guns without special permission from the U.S. Treasury Department.If you need special permission to get a gun, it's not regularly available to the average person, and hence the average person is "banned" from owning it. Note this isn't just a ban on sale, it's a ban on ownership. At any time the ATF can revoke your special privilege and confiscate your weapon.
Since the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of May 19, 1986, ownership of newly manufactured machine guns has been prohibited to civilians.If you want to own a machine gun, you can't own a new one if you are a civilian. You are banned from the purchase OR ownership of a machine gun built after 1986, regardless of whether you could finnagle some special permission to own the weapon.
Twenty-five states have no further restrictions on civilian ownership of machine guns (some require registration with the state) than what is required by federal law. Other states have either placed further restrictions or outlawed operable machine guns to civilians entirely. For further details see NRA state firearm law summaries.Some states restrict this even further, and even ban the ownership regardless of whether ATF grants "special permission".
As someone else noted, even if you do manage to convince ATF that you need a machine gun, you also have to pay a special "gun tax" every year.
So you don't lie, but you have learned "Mitt Speak"