I'm proposing an idea that should satisfy both gun nuts AND liberals/progressives...

[sofa king]

45. Those are sometimes called "antique firearms."

Until 2006--and still all over the Internet today--it was widely believed that even convicted violent felons could own "primitive weapons" like muzzleloaders because they were specifically excepted from the definition of a "firearm" in some federal laws and in BATF regulations. The US Code offers this:

(3) The term “firearm” means
(A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive;
(B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon;
(C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or
(D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.

and

(16) The term “antique firearm” means—
(A) any firearm (including any firearm with a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system) manufactured in or before 1898; or
(B) any replica of any firearm described in subparagraph (A) if such replica—
(i) is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition, or
(ii) uses rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition which is no longer manufactured in the United States and which is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade; or
(C) any muzzle loading rifle, muzzle loading shotgun, or muzzle loading pistol, which is designed to use black powder, or a black powder substitute, and which cannot use fixed ammunition. For purposes of this subparagraph, the term “antique firearm” shall not include any weapon which incorporates a firearm frame or receiver, any firearm which is converted into a muzzle loading weapon, or any muzzle loading weapon which can be readily converted to fire fixed ammunition by replacing the barrel, bolt, breechblock, or any combination thereof.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921

That didn't wash with the Wyoming Supreme Court, in Harris v. State:

http://law.justia.com/cases/wyoming/supreme-court/2006/446994.html

They concluded that since their state did not define "firearm," as the feds did, that the default dictionary definitions, rather than federal legal definitions, apply in Wyoming.

I tossed that up because asking Google the question revealed the trifecta of bad information sites: ask, wikianswers, and yahoo. Hilariously, I noticed that one of the "best answers" to the question of whether or not felons can own muzzleloaders was, "go to a law library and look it up." Idiots. Not even law students go to the law library anymore, unless they're looking for the notes some other, better student wrote in the margins of the books that are all scanned, digitized, and often freely available.