The assault weapons ban had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with machineguns. Civilian ownership of machineguns has been regulated since 1934 and is totally separate from the so-called assault weapons ban.
And frankly the whole law was stupid in the first place. I halfway suspect it was the result of pro-gun people in congress deciding to pull a practical joke on the anti-gun people in congress. The law prohibited a few specific guns (although knock-off models could be imported as long as they weren't made by the manufacturer listed in the bill), but mainly the bill banned cosmetic features.
Take the AK-47 for instance. So long as it was a knockoff model, which didn't have a flash suppressor or bayonet attachment, had a solid stock rather than folding stock, and was given a 10 round magazine; it was perfectly legal. Why? Because like I said the ban was a ban (mostly) on cosmetic features.
And if you wanted your knockoff AK-47 to have a larger than 10 round clip, you could go out and buy one that was made before 1994 (congratulations congress, you gave gun stores the opportunity to make more money since they now had an excuse to charge a premium for an accessory).
I rather enjoyed laughing at one of the sponsors of the bill who was on 60 Minutes a year or so after it was passed, who was outraged that those dastardly manufacturers were still legally selling the guns after merely dropping the cosmetic features (they showed a virtually identical pre and post ban version of I think the AK-47) such as the previously mentioned bayonet lug and folding stock. He thought it was an outrage that after banning cosmetic features the manufacturers simply removed those cosmetic features and sold functionally almost identical guns. Whereas my thoughts were something along the lines of, "That surprised you? If you're that stupid how the heck did you ever graduate from preschool let alone college!"
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