[Dr Big Bird PhD]

Figure the title would turn a few heads. Anyway, I am doing script coverage for my company and one of the sections goes as follows:

"Across his lap is the AR 15 assault rifle. He has it mostly disassembled and is in the process of placing three pennies behind the firing pin, making a semiautomatic rifle a machine gun."

Besides the /hilarious/ misuse of terminology, is there any substantial backing to the idea that one can use pennies, or anything else, to alter the firing pin to become fully automatic?

Which also brings me to a large ATF encounter commandeering a shipment of airsoft guns under the statue of "easy conversion" to real automatic weapons. I have my personal bias against this inane enforcement (personally i find it irrational to regulated a weapon's firing capabilities), however how easy is it actually make a semi-automatic weapon full auto?

or am i missing something