He's right, sort of. He still has to pay the NFA fee (what is it, $200?) but it does not have to transfer thru a dealer (which would mean another $200 fee and another delay.)
Also he can also import the gun himself if it's outside the USA. (there's a lot of paperwork for that) But I don't think there's a way to get it into the registry so that's probably a dead end for machine guns.
I may have some of the details wrong because I haven't really looked into it; the only NFA stuff I am interested in are silencers (illegal in this state even with a tax stamp
) and the Ithaca "Auto-Burglar" shotgun.