Up against a deadline, senators rolled out legislation meant to make machine guns more readily available in West Virginia.
It’s a proposal that captured public imagination like a blast.
“I did not expect to be talking about automatic weapons and machine guns,” Senator Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, said on Radio Roundtable on WJLS AM. “That one surprised me.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee discussed and advanced the bill on Monday afternoon. By Wednesday, the Legislature is subject to a deadline for moving bills from one chamber to another, so this could be sliding through just under the wire.
The justification of the proposal is to ensure armament parity between the general public and modern military forces to ensure state defense.
Much of text of SB 1071 cites Second Amendment rights and federal loopholes to allow states to authorize the transfer of fully automatic weapons.
“Before 1986 West Virginians could purchase machine guns freely. You could order them from the Sears catalog, you could buy them from the store,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, said after an evening floor session.
“We’re trying to get back to that state of being, which we think is the proper state for the Second Amendment, so that we’ve got a right to protect ourselves from tyranny from the government.”
Willis continued by acknowledging friction with federal law.
“This is a novel legal concept under federal law so I understand there’s some controversy about it, but it’s a loophole created in the federal law,” Willis said. “So we’re pushing it forward so we can have full freedom with our Second Amendment rights in West Virginia.”
The bill, called the the Public Defense and Provisioning Act, would establish a new Office of Public Defense managed by the State Police to oversee the sale and distribution of machine guns to eligible residents.
Under the proposal, the state would operate distribution stations at police headquarters and collect fees to fund the program’s administration.
The proposal outlines specific background check requirements and procedures for the legal transfer or return of the firearms.
“The State Police will have an oversight role, they’ll have rule-making authority to establish rules. A person applying to buy a machine gun would still have to go through the ATF application process and be approved at the federal level as well,” Willis said.
Lonnie Faircloth, president of the West Virginia Troopers Association, testified briefly before the committee and said he has misgivings.
“Personally, I have concerns with it just because of the fact that we’re transferring to a private citizen and we’re now possibly making them a felon. Same with us possibly doing the same,” Faircloth said.
The committee also took testimony from Alex Shay, who described himself as volunteer state director for Gun Owners of America.
“The state does have the authority to transfer, sell or buy,” Shay told lawmakers.
The Gun Owners of America organization posted a photo on social media over the weekend with Gov. Patrick Morrisey and thanked him for his support.
Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, has serious doubts about this premise. “The only problem with that is that it’s against federal law to do so,” Weld said on MetroNews Talkline.
“For some reason this bill purports that it has found some loophole that the NRA or the Citizens Defense League has not found nor anyone else has found and require that our State Police become arms dealers and sell machine guns to citizens.”