if the plastic gun ban was not already law right now, and it was coming up for discussion right now in this congress, would it pass? two years before the ban on plastic guns, same president, ronald reagan, also signed into law a ban on average civilians owning machine guns for their own personal use. if that were not already the law today, if machine guns were legal today, and there was a proposal in congress to make them illegal, could that pass? would republicans in congress today support that? when the nra convention convened in houston this weekend, vice president joe biden greeted them by writing an op-ed in the local paper, in the houston chronicle, so that anybody in town for the convention if they looked in the local paper, would find a note from him. the vice president s op-ed, he starts a hopeful sort of nonconfrontational note saying background checks will be expanded, not giving up, they re going to keep working on it.