Lord Long Rod
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2023
- 7,706
- 8,160
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- Banned
- #1
So you want a machine-gun?
You’ve been watching action movies for like forever, and you have some spare cash. It’s time to cowboy up and buy…wait for it…a machinegun! Except you can’t. You sort of can, but not really. But I don’t want a...
Years ago I decided to do all the permitting jazz and buy a pre-1983 machine gun. I was blown away by the prices. Back then you could buy an Ingram M10 for like $3-4k, and an Uzi for $5-6k. I decided against it, opting to stick with my FULLY semi-automatic rifles.
Time passed and I got the bug again. Sure, I do not like the government looking into my business, but my record is spotless and I intend for it to remain so. At first I bought a couple of pieces with binary triggers. They were fun to shoot and better than the bump stick gimmickry. But they were no substitution for the real thing.
I said F- it. I can afford one, so I am going to get one. By this time these weapons had gone through the roof price wise. Nothing worth having was below $20k. I get it. There is a finite supply of these weapons, so prices will naturally rise with time. But I am still a prudent person and this kind of money for a rifle exceeded my willingness to buy one. I was wanting a fully automatic Russian AK.
Are there any other options? Well, you CAN get some parts from a full auto, a drill, and then modify a semi so that it become fully automatic. But without the FFL, manufacture license and tax thing, if authorities catch you with it they will absolutely bury you for life. So that’s out.
Perhaps one can get an FFL and maintain it by buying and selling a few guns each year in order to satisfy the ATF you are a legitimate dealer? You can certainly legally purchase some of these pieces then. Yes, you can do this. But if you do not keep meticulous records they will bury you for life. You are subject to annual audits by the ATF. I suspect that you also go on a variety of government lists that I would prefer to stay off of. If one of the guns you sell is used in a crime, they MAY bury you for life. If not, they will merely make your life a living hell.
The federal government, notwithstanding the Second Amendment, has made ownership of automatic weapons nearly impossible for the private citizen. If you get all the licensing and maintain a small buy/sell operation, you can get hold of some of the modern automatic weapons at a price far below what you have to pay for the pre-1983 inventory. But you have to go through a lot to do this. You can get “dealer models” you can conceivably use to demonstrate for potential purchasers, like law enforcement. Frankly, it is a lot more involved than I am personally willing to commit to.
One must wonder if such regulation infringes upon what was intended by the authors of the Second Amendment. It is probably the case for most of us that we do not want to see a pipeline that pumps these weapons into the ghettos. Of course, these weapons have certain military uses which do not always include accuracy. The ghetto gangs are already not known for their shooting accuracy, so maybe giving them automatic weapons will actually save lives? Who knows.
Clearly, the vast majority of American gun owners are law abiding and would not use their automatic weapons to arm his or her drug gangs. Why can’t we have these weapons? If the purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect oneself and the republic from tyranny and foreign invasion, then surely it encompasses ownership and possession of automatic weapons.
Burdening 99.9% of the population to prevent 0.1% of the population from doing something can reasonably be said to be unconstitutional in that a particular regulation must have a rational relationship to the matter it seeks to remedy. Perhaps the better regulation is to put people who commit violent gun crimes away forever. The death penalty should also be applied. This will deter criminals without having to burden 99.99% of the population. Of course, this will depend on prosecutors and judges who are true to their oath of office to enforce and apply the laws enacted by the legislatures. Unfortunately, this cannot be counted on today. So we should restrict these weapons? No. We should restrict who we select to hold public offices.
