[hinckley buzzard]

Believe what you want chief. Sounds like bull sh!t to me. Brady was in no condition to be going out and buying machine guns. And with his wife running his affairs? Use your head, f'r crissakes. Or do you think he had them thirty odd years ago before he got shot. Really? sheesh.

[MasterGunner01]

Up until 1986, Title II weapons were freely obtained by civilian owners who followed ATF application procedures under the 1934 National Firearms Act. To get your very own select fire weapon you had to: 1) get fingerprinted and run through a national agency check; 2) approval of your local chief LEO (usually the county sheriff); and 3) the weapon was not forbidden by state law. The completed application paperwork was sent to ATF for approval, along with $200 for the tax stamp. When the papers came back (with the tax stamp attached), the new owner paid the Class III dealer for the price of his legal machine gun and took it home.

In 1986, the Donkeys inserted a provision into a pro-gun bill that outlawed the sale of new production machine guns. MG sales were limited to: 1) the U.S. military; 2) to LEOs or law enforcement agencies; or 3) dealer samples. Dealer samples could only be sold to other Class III dealers to law enforcement or the military. Since the 1986 law change, machine guns can be owned by civilians as part of a trust (but I'm not savvy on all the details here). Also, all legally owned machine guns before the effectivity date of the 1986 law change can continue to be sold. The problem with these guns are: 1) the pool of transferable guns is shrinking as guns wear out or Ka-Boom; and 2) because the pool is shrinking the prices of these guns has skyrocketed.

In so far as Mr. Brady is concerned, he owned his collection before the 1986 law effectivity date and so all these guns were grandfathered (that is, they can be sold to private parties). At the time (before he was shot by Hinkley), Brady was quite rich and could afford what he wanted.