2A advocate says “After 40 years… machine guns could become legal again”

In a recent video, gun rights activist and YouTuber Colion Noir says a new bill out of West Virginia sounds like pure fantasy at first, the kind of headline that makes people blink twice and assume it has to be fake. But in his telling, this isn’t a stunt and it isn’t some “ignore federal law” scheme either. He calls it a legal pressure test – one designed to force courts and the federal government to answer a question they’ve avoided for decades.

Noir says West Virginia lawmakers have introduced a bill that would let the state sell machine guns to regular, law-abiding citizens. He emphasizes the structure: the state would create a new Office of Public Defense inside the West Virginia State Police, and that office would oversee transfers of machine guns to people who can legally buy and possess firearms in the state.

He also notes the list of firearms described in the bill’s language as he presents it – AR-15s, M249s, and MP5 firearms – then pauses to acknowledge what most viewers are thinking: a state police office transferring machine guns to civilians sounds “insane on its face.”

The Bill’s Core Argument, As Noir Frames It

Noir says the bill’s stated purpose is to interpret the Second Amendment as guaranteeing “armament parity” between citizens and government infantrymen. He lingers on that word – parity – because he believes it’s the whole point.

In Noir’s view, modern gun control rests on an unspoken rule that the government gets the best tools and citizens don’t. He says this proposal is meant to challenge that assumption head-on, not by yelling into the void, but by building an argument inside the text of federal law.

That’s where he shifts from shock value to legal mechanics. He says the whole strategy depends on who conducts the transfer. If a private dealer transfers a post-1986 machine gun to a civilian, he says that’s treated as a violation. But if the state is the transferor, Noir argues the conversation changes – because the federal statute includes an exemption.

He’s careful here to say what it isn’t: not nullification, not rebellion, not “pretending federal law doesn’t exist.” The plan, as he explains it, is to take federal law at its word and test what the exemption actually means.

The 1934 To 1986 Backstory In Plain Terms

Noir walks through the history the way he thinks most people never hear it.

He says the National Firearms Act of 1934 didn’t flat-out ban machine guns. Instead, it regulated them through registration and a tax system. That matters because it shows the original model wasn’t “no civilians,” but “heavy regulation.”

Then he jumps to 1986 and what he calls the real choke point: the Hughes Amendment. In Noir’s explanation, the Hughes Amendment froze the civilian machine gun registry. His description is blunt: no newly manufactured machine guns after May 19, 1986 can be transferred to civilians.

That is why, Noir says, transferable machine guns are so expensive now. He calls it an artificial cap, a limited supply problem, and he compares it to the diamond industry: scarce partly because scarcity is enforced.

He argues that for nearly 40 years, people have treated this as permanent, airtight, and basically untouchable.

Then he drops the hinge of his entire argument: the exemption.

The Exemption Noir Says Everyone Ignores

Noir says federal law includes language allowing a transfer “to or by” a state, or possession “by or under the authority” of the United States or a state and its agencies.

He calls this the “hinge,” because if that language is real and meaningful, then a state-run transfer program could fit inside it. And if it doesn’t work that way, he says, then the exemption is essentially decorative – words on paper that courts and agencies treat like they don’t matter.

What West Virginia is trying to do, in his telling, is simple but bold: make the state the transferor. The office inside the state police would acquire machine guns and then transfer them under state authority to qualified people.

Noir says the bill doesn’t try to erase disqualifiers or pretend background checks don’t exist. He stresses that the eligibility standard remains the same: a “qualified person” is someone who is eligible to purchase and possess firearms under West Virginia and federal law.

In other words, he argues the proposal changes one key variable – who conducts the transfer – then dares the federal government to explain why the plain language doesn’t mean what it appears to say.

Why Noir Thinks The Courts Can’t Dodge This Forever

Noir is realistic about what happens next if the bill passes and moves toward implementation. He says the ATF isn’t going to “clap and send flowers.” He expects a challenge, and he expects the federal government to argue intent—basically, that the exemption was never meant to allow a state to act as a middleman for civilian possession.

But Noir counters that courts interpret text, not vibes. He keeps coming back to the phrase “to or by a state,” saying the legal fight becomes a simple question: does that exemption have actual force, or is it meaningless?

This is where his commentary gets more pointed, because he believes this is what gun law needs more of – clean legal confrontations that force clarity instead of endless gray zones and quiet assumptions.

He says the bill is “strategic,” not reckless. He sees it as federalism used as a tool: one state tests a boundary, litigation follows, and courts clarify.

You can agree or disagree with his goal, but the method he’s describing is familiar in American law: push a hard question into a courtroom where someone has to answer it.

The Funding Hook And The “Not Just Symbolic” Piece

Noir points out the bill isn’t written like a protest sign. He says it includes an operational framework and even a funding structure.

As he reads it, the program would add a $250 “search charge” to each transfer, and that money would go into a public defense fund. He highlights that detail because it signals the bill is designed to function, not just make noise.

And he quotes another part that stands out: machine guns would be available for sale and transfer at state police troop headquarters throughout West Virginia.

That line alone is the kind of thing that would set off sirens in a lot of people’s minds, and Noir knows it. But he keeps returning to his main theme: this is a legal test of text, not a fantasy about everyone walking around with belt-fed guns next week.

The Deeper Argument He Wants People To Hear

Noir broadens the frame to history and the idea of the militia.

He argues the founding-era understanding wasn’t that the militia was some separate government force. In his view, the militia was “the people,” and he references the idea that citizens were expected to provide their own arms and ammunition in early America.

He also says there were periods when surplus military rifles were sold directly to civilians, and he brings up the idea that states have armed citizens during wartime and emergencies. To him, the underlying philosophy is that citizens are not meant to be technologically inferior to the government’s infantry.

This is where his point becomes less about one West Virginia bill and more about a long-running cultural split: is the Second Amendment about hunting and home defense only, or is it tied to the idea of citizens as a meaningful counterweight to state power?

Noir lands on the second view, and he sees this bill as a way to drag that debate out into the open using the federal statute’s own wording as the lever.

Why This Fight Matters Even If The Bill Never “Works”

Even if West Virginia’s plan gets blocked, Noir suggests the attempt itself could matter because it forces a ruling.

Either courts say the exemption means what it says, or they explain why it doesn’t. Either way, he argues, the long silence around the post-1986 machine gun freeze gets broken.

That’s the part that feels genuinely interesting, even beyond the politics: this isn’t a normal “gun bill” argument about emotions or slogans. It’s closer to a courtroom puzzle – an effort to make government lawyers choose between plain text and a decades-old way of treating that text.

Noir’s bottom line is that West Virginia “turned the lights on,” and now the country has to find out whether that exemption is real law or just ink that nobody planned to honor.

And whether you find that exciting or alarming, it’s hard to deny the basic tension he’s pointing at: if a statute contains an exemption, someone eventually is going to try to use it exactly as written.