NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FEDERAL LAWYERS
What is 18 USC 922(o)
|Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek – with over 40 years of combined experience handling federal criminal cases. If you’re researching 18 USC 922(o), you’re probably facing a machine gun charge or worried about one – and that puts you in serious federal territory.
We’ve represented clients in firearms cases that other attorneys refused to touch. You might know us from the Netflix series about Anna Delvey, or from our work on the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case. Those high-profile cases share something with yours – they all seemed impossible until we took them on.
This article explains what 18 USC 922(o) prohibits, why May 19, 1986 matters so much to your case, what penalties prosecutors will threaten, and the defenses that actually work in federal court.
What 18 USC 922(o) Actually Prohibits
The statute is short. It says this: “It shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.” That’s it – transfer or possess. Doesn’t matter if you bought it, inherited it, built it in your garage, or found it at an estate sale. Possession alone violates federal law.
Congress passed this as part of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act in 1986. Representative William Hughes slipped in an amendment at the last minute that banned civilian machine gun ownership going forward. President Reagan signed it on May 19, 1986, and that date became the line in the sand.
What counts as a machine gun? The ATF defines it as any weapon that shoots more than one round per trigger pull. That includes military-style automatic rifles and conversion devices – drop-in auto sears, lightning links, forced reset triggers. Install one of those in a semi-automatic rifle and you’ve just manufactured a machine gun under federal law.
People get charged for things they don’t think are machine guns. A client inherits his grandfather’s gun collection and doesn’t realize one rifle was registered as fully automatic. Someone buys a “solvent trap” online that ATF later classifies as a machine gun part. These cases happen constantly.
May 19, 1986 Changed Everything
Before May 19, 1986, you could legally buy a machine gun if you paid the $200 tax stamp and registered it with ATF under the National Firearms Act. After May 19, 1986, the registry closed. No new machine guns added to the civilian registry – ever.
This created two categories. Pre-1986 guns that were lawfully registered before the cutoff date can still be bought, sold, and owned by civilians. They’re legal, transferable, and worth a fortune because there’s a fixed supply. A pre-1986 M16 that cost $1,500 in 1985 sells for $30,000 or more today.
Post-1986 machine guns cannot be owned by civilians at all. Only government agencies and licensed manufacturers can possess them.
The statute includes an exception for “any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect.” That’s your defense if you own a pre-1986 gun – prove it was registered before May 19, 1986, prove you acquired it legally, prove the transfer followed NFA rules.
Prosecutors love 922(o) cases because the law is strict. They don’t need to prove you used the gun in a crime or that you intended violence. They just need to prove you possessed a machine gun after May 19, 1986 without falling into an exception.
Penalties Hit Hard and Stack Fast
Violate 922(o) and you’re facing up to 10 years in federal prison under 18 USC 924(a)(2). Fines go up to $250,000 for individuals. That’s the baseline – before enhancements, before criminal history calculations, before anything else gets added.
Federal prosecutors stack charges. Get caught with a machine gun during a drug transaction and you’ve got 922(o) plus 924(c) – using a firearm during a drug trafficking crime. The 924(c) charge alone carries a mandatory minimum of 5 years, stacked consecutively. Machine guns trigger even harsher enhancements under the sentencing guidelines.
Your criminal history matters. Someone with no prior record might argue for a sentence at the low end. Someone with felony convictions will see the criminal history category climb, pushing the guideline range higher. Judges have discretion after United States v. Booker, but they still start with the guidelines.
We’ve seen clients facing 5 years, 8 years, even 15 years when machine gun charges stack with drug or violence charges.
Defenses That Actually Work
Lack of knowledge is a real defense if you can prove it. You inherited a gun collection and genuinely didn’t know one rifle was a registered machine gun – that’s a fact question for trial. The government must prove you knowingly possessed a machine gun, not just that you possessed a firearm that happened to be automatic.
The pre-1986 exception is the most common defense. Your gun was lawfully registered before May 19, 1986, you have documentation proving it, you acquired it through a legal NFA transfer. That’s a complete defense to 922(o) – the statute explicitly allows lawful possession of pre-1986 guns. Prosecutors drop cases when the paperwork checks out.
Challenging the definition of “machine gun” works in some cases. ATF has changed positions on what counts as a machine gun – forced reset triggers were legal, then illegal, then the subject of settlements in 2025 that restricted enforcement. If your device was legal when you bought it and ATF reclassified it later, you’ve got arguments about fair notice.
Illegal search and seizure can kill a case before trial. Police searched your home without a warrant, or exceeded the scope of a warrant, or searched your car without probable cause. The machine gun gets suppressed as evidence and the case collapses.
We challenge the evidence itself. Is that device actually a machine gun or just a semi-automatic with a malfunction? Did ATF test it properly? Expert witnesses matter – gunsmiths, firearms examiners, engineers who understand how the mechanism works.
Why These Cases Need Immediate Attention
Federal firearms cases move differently than state cases. ATF doesn’t investigate unless they think they’ve got you – they’ve already done surveillance, traced the gun, built the file. By the time you’re arrested, prosecutors often have search warrants executed, guns seized, evidence catalogued. You’re behind from the start.
At Spodek Law Group – we understand that delay in these cases costs you options. Challenge the search immediately and you might suppress the evidence. Wait until after indictment and the judge assumes the search was fine.
Federal prosecutors in 2025 are still aggressive on gun cases despite some ATF policy changes. Machine guns remain a priority – they’re politically sensitive, they carry mandatory sentences that help coerce pleas. The statute doesn’t care about your intent.
We’ve handled firearms cases from New York to California – cases involving illegal dealers, felon-in-possession charges, straw purchases, conversion devices, unregistered NFA weapons. Many, many of the cases we’re famous for handling were cases others said were unwinnable.
If ATF contacted you about a machine gun, if you received a seizure notice, if you’re under investigation – get representation before you make statements that become evidence against you.