West Virginia's Machine Gun Litmus Test for States Claiming Second Amendment Allegiance

When West Virginia Senators Chris Rose and Zack Maynard introduced SB 1071, the Public Defense and Provisioning Act, on February 23, I was immediately impressed by the clever approach to restore Second Amendment rights at the state level. The Gun Owners of America (GOA) backed bill would create a state-run system that allows qualified citizens to purchase machine guns through a government office. SB 1071 was written to comply with the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), which specifies that transfers made “by” and “under the authority of” a state meet the requirements of federal statutes for permitting possession and transfer of machine guns.

Although the bill passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee with overwhelming support, it was blocked from being brought to a vote in the State Senate by Senate President Randy Smith, exposing yet another phony conservative acting on behalf of his subversive masters rather than his constituents. Smith’s scorn stems from his belief that SB 1071 was poorly drafted and would face legal challenges, a pathetic excuse for his unilateral defiance of the will of the people he was elected to represent.

“I alone decided that the Senate would not take up the bill for further consideration… I did so with no reservation. With an issue as critical as the protection of our Second Amendment rights, we must ensure the legislation we pass will survive legal challenge. This would not have,” Smith said in a statement.

I contacted Randy Smith to ask for any additional context he may wish to contribute, wanting to give the WV Senate President a fair shake. Smith did not reach out to me; however, a member of his staff informed me that there was nothing more his office intended to say other than what had been reported.

Randy, you should know better than to lob me an easy one. The claim that you are protecting the Second Amendment by blocking a pro-Second Amendment bill not only gives you away as another backstabbing swamp servant, but it is also indicative of your contempt for the people who put you in office and the founding American values we’ve strayed so far from to get where we are. It is also insulting to the intelligence of your constituents, whom I pray will send you to the unemployment line in the next election.

In truth, SB 1071 was carefully vetted by GOA attorneys prior to its introduction, and its language matches that of similar Kentucky legislation proposed by attorney and State Representative T.J. Roberts. The bill also passed the standard review process required to introduce legislation in West Virginia, and GOA experts, who I will remind you do this for a living, say that the bill was neither rushed nor poorly drafted.

The fight that should never have been is not over yet, however, as SB 1071’s language may be introduced in the House as an amendment to another bill moving through the legislative process. This is where I tell you to make the phones in the West Virginia House of Delegates ring off the hook until that happens. Further, I encourage everyone to contact members of the West Virginia Senate, especially Randy Smith’s office, to express your disappointment over his single-handed obstruction of the freedom and the will of West Virginians and Americans alike. Hopefully, you can do so with the respect Smith did not afford the people or the Constitution. If not, I’ll understand.

Regardless of the outcome, the fact remains that we shouldn’t be here. The NFA is nothing more than a stark reminder that our government and the Supreme Court sold the American people out at least as early as 1934, but likely sooner than that. The NFA is an illegal and unconstitutional firearms registry and has always been an attempt to both tax and intimidate you from exercising an inalienable liberty recognized and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Try applying the same principles to the freedom of expression, the press, religion, and speech, and watch how the left, which now includes Randy Smith, cries havoc over their First Amendment. News flash, if it isn’t a violation of the Second, it cannot be a violation of the First, but lawmakers know that. Don’t ever let them lead you to believe that ignorance, of which they have an abundance, is the driving force behind their actions. It is nothing more than unadulterated corruption, lawlessness, and the desire to subjugate Americans.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to remind everyone about a few more deceivers in our midst, such as President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who are currently using your tax dollars to defend the NFA against the Big Beautiful Lawsuit filed by Silencer Shop, Silencer Shop Foundation, GOA,  B&T USA, SilencerCo, Palmetto State Armory (PSA), and the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition (FRAC). To follow that betrayal from beginning to present, check your back issues or head over to FirearmsNews.com and search for The One Big Betrayal in the One Big Beautiful Bill, One Big Beautiful Lawsuit, and One Big Beautiful Update, Part 1. In the series, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President JD Vance are also exposed for their complicity with the Senate Parliamentarian.

If that isn’t enough, the DOJ recently flaunted its anti-Second Amendment position by making it clear that the ATF would enforce NFA regulations against braced pistols despite a 2023 federal court decision that struck down the Biden-era rule. In a revealing moment, only made possible by the finest treachery this administration has to offer, the ATF stated that removing the rule does not restrict the agency’s ability to interpret and enforce the NFA against the same braced firearms they formerly agreed were not NFA items, moving the goalposts yet again to make criminals out of law-abiding Americans.

“At any rate, [the ATF] continues to enforce certain statutory requirements and prohibitions that they have been delegated the authority and responsibility to administer, which is irrelevant to whether plaintiff’s … challenge to the now defunct rule is moot,” according to the agency.

While the mood seems bleak, as we come to the understanding that those we’ve elected to restore our rights are worse than those who took them from us in the first place, there is some silver lining. We now have a litmus test for our state representatives who claim they support the Second Amendment and act as if they share our frustration and dismay at the federal government’s violations of it. I mentioned earlier that the language in SB 1071 is also being used in Kentucky’s HB 749, and I encourage constituents to call their representatives off the hook and demand that these measures be proposed in their states. Let’s put them all to the test. Where are we, Texas? Wyoming? Montana? South Dakota? Ohio? Arizona? Missouri? New Hampshire?

If I didn’t call you out, I think you get the picture, and in many cases, we already know the answer. It’s never a bad time to hold the feet of our elected officials and lawmakers to the fire. Make them accountable or expose them as liars and send them packing. Stop electing people with no other motivation than to be life-long gutter rats who only know allegiance to power and will sell you out cheaply just for a sliver. The Republican Party has been plagued for as long as I can remember by conservative impostors, and yet we continue to capitulate and make excuses for them. There is no 4D chess game going on here other than the one being played against 2A supporters.

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