Congress moves to legalize civilian machine guns after 40 years
H.R. 9009 — Firearm Freedom Act of 2026 · Filed by Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced May 22, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill repeals the Hughes Amendment, a 1986 federal law that banned civilians from possessing or transferring machine guns manufactured after May 1986. The bill would restore the legal right for ordinary citizens to own and transfer fully automatic weapons, subject only to existing federal firearms licensing and registration requirements. Machine gun owners and manufacturers stand to gain market access; public safety advocates argue the change increases risk of mass-casualty violence.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to remove a federal prohibition on civilian machine gun ownership and transfer. It is a straightforward deregulatory measure that eliminates a 40-year categorical ban, not a complex or hidden mechanism.
What the text implies
- Repealing the Hughes Amendment would create a secondary market for pre-1986 machine guns (already legal but heavily restricted), potentially driving up prices and creating incentives for illegal conversion of semi-automatic weapons to full-auto.
- The bill does not address how existing federal licensing (NFA registration, FFL dealer requirements) would apply to the newly legalized post-1986 machine guns, creating potential regulatory ambiguity.
- Removal of the ban may increase machine gun availability in jurisdictions with weaker state-level restrictions, potentially enabling circumvention of state bans through interstate purchase and transfer.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill removes a 40-year-old public safety restriction on access to fully automatic weapons. While gun-rights advocates view this as restoring constitutional liberty, the removal of a categorical ban on machine guns increases civilian access to weapons designed for rapid mass casualty — a concrete cost to public safety and a shift in risk allocation toward the general public.
Who stands to gain
- machine gun manufacturers
- firearms dealers and distributors
- gun owners seeking to purchase or transfer automatic weapons
Named in the bill
Hughes Amendment, Firearm Owners' Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), machine gun manufacturers
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 10 Republicans.
- May 22, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 22, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $540,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 87 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Jimmy Patronis, the sponsor, reported $517,300 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Rifle Association of America — $540,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 16, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (212 characters) on Oct 26, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,580 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-26.
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