There are a few things that nearly every little boy (in my experience) wanted when they were young. They wanted fast cars, they wanted motorcycles, they wanted a fort, a tank, and a machine gun.
Sure, little girls may have wanted those same things, too, but my daughter certainly never showed an inclination towards any of those things (well, curiosity about firing a machine gun as she got to be an adult).
And some things that you want as a kid you grow out of. For example, I really don’t have any desire now to have a Ferrari or to have a true military fort (they’re bigger than you imagine as a kid).
Other things, though, you always want, and there are some folks that want machine guns even as adults.
The problem is that machine guns have been hard to get legally here in the U.S., and even if you can get through all of the hoops, because you have to buy from a limited pool of already in circulation machine guns, they are reportedly very expensive.
That may change in one state, though. Luke McCoy gives us the details:
A new bill supported by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and allied lawmakers has been introduced in the West Virginia Senate that would create a state-run system allowing qualified citizens to acquire machine guns through a government office.
Senate Bill 1071, titled the Public Defense and Provisioning Act, was introduced February 23, 2026, by Senators Rose and Z. Maynard.
McCoy continues:
The legislation proposes creating an Office of Public Defense within the West Virginia State Police. The office would be responsible for acquiring and transferring machine guns to individuals legally eligible to possess firearms under both state and federal law.
Under the bill, a “Qualified Person” is defined as anyone eligible to purchase and possess firearms under existing West Virginia and federal statutes.
Now, I don’t currently live in West Virginia, but I do have family there. So, I could use that as an excuse to move there.
But who am I kidding? I’d move there just so that I could legally buy a machine gun and take it out into my backyard and shoot targets and two liter bottles (looking at you Hickock45).
Because isn’t that what we all really want to do?