Civilian ownership of fully automatic weapons

[GeorgeF]

Big of you to admit. I also take back my statement about you coming to this forum and 'baiting' the members here. I see that it originally started in the General Handgun Forum and was then moved here.

I hope you get a chance to get out and do some shooting of automatic firearms. They are a blast and I have yet to run into an owner of one who wasnt happy to share their experience with others. Great bunch of folks.

[alan]

Springfield XD40 wrote:

Man Guess I really opened a can of worms here. However, you guy's make some very valid points, after reading them, you're right, the logic is flawed. Just for the record, I'll soon be a CCW permit holder, I'm not an "anti-gunner", I'm just stating a feeling, you guy's did an excellent job of raising very valid points. Once again, I just learned a lot, that I hadn't previously thought of.

--------------

I guess that you did.

Having said that, you inquired as to the "need" for ownership of automatic weapons by civilians. Personally, I believe that is a very poorly put question, however you might consider the following, a question that another might put to you. Do you "need", however "Need" might be spelled, to carry a handgun concealed on or about your person?

Personally speaking, if you characterized that as another "poorly put question", I would NOT argue the point, however someone might still ask it. What would be your answer, other than the obvious, which someone who was desirous of owning a machinegun, could have applied to your question.

By the way, respecting a much used old saw, The Power To Tax Is The Power To Destroy, consider the following. Prior to 1934, at least according to federal law, given the purchase price of whatever type of machinegun you desired, you counted out the cash, or wrote a check, and took your machinegun home. The 1934 Act created that $200 Transfer Tax, not to mention the requirement for all manner of paper work, sometimes described as Welfare For Treasury Agents.

Anyhow, getting on with it, question has been raised as to the basis of the 1934 Act itself, for The Constitution nowhere gave The Congress the power to in any way at all, regulate or control guns, ergo the Revenue Raising Basis for the 1934 Act. The Congress had been given the power to levy and collect taxes. At this point, we come back to The Power to Tax and The Power to Destroy. While $200 might not be all that much today, in 1934, with the country economically speaking, falling on it's face, remember The Great Depression, $200 was a hell of a lot of money.

Was the intent of this law, and the level of taxation included therein a legitimate attempt to "raise revenue" or was the intent behind this level of taxation, the destruction of part of the right of Americans to Keep and Bear Arms? Answer that qoestion for yourself. By the way, from what I've here and there read,m the 1934 Act never raised all that much "revenue", and some have speculated that a more reasonable level of taxation, say $5.00collected on a drive thru basis, could really have been a money maker for government.

Alas, the thing was not so set up, and then we have seen, in the years since, all manner of legislative garbage foisted off on law abiding Americans, the 1986 legislation being just one example thereof. I rest my case.

[Bass Man]

I agree there is no "need" for a full auto weapon. I won't be buying one because they cost too much. I don't see why if you go through all of the hoops you can't own one though. It would be a blast to shoot for fun, but I don't need it. An AR-15 is just as lethal and was proven a few years ago that a bolt gun in the hands of criminal can pick people off out of the trunk of a car. If a criminal wants a full auto they will find one illegally. Same with any gun used in crimes.

[Hello123]

What I love about firearms is they provide equality between a well armed government and its citizens. Genocide happens when the government or armed group attacks a group with no power to defend itself. Genocide is currently occurring in Africa by Muslims on Christians. This is because the Christians have no way to defend themselves.

In order for there to be a balance of power, there needs to a balance of technology. In other words, the power of the people must be proportional to the government's power. This cannot happen if the citizens have no access to proportional weaponary. What if the US government would not have let its citizens purchase weapons that used smokeless powder and instead required them to keep their old smokepoles 120 years ago? Obviously, that would be a gross imbalance of power.

When this country was fighting for its independence from Britian, the elitist monarchies did not believe the common man was capable of being trusted and ruling themselves. This is the same attitude of superiority that does not trust the common man to own automatic weaponary. If I wanted to kill a large group of people (which of course I never would do, nor want to), I would not need an automatic weapon, thus, the argument that people would not have the power to kill the masses easily without an automatic weapon is irrelevant.

[drifts1]

When stating your opinions(xd40)keep them your personal preference and refrain from implying they should apply to everyone else or asking everyone to justify their personal preferences, so you wont be thought of as a gun control freak:barf: unless you are pro gun control. I cant figure you out sometimes.

[MGRacer]

The sole purpose of these things is to kill many people at once, they are military anti-personnel weapons. Before people respond with, "why do you need a handgun" argument, the difference in lethality of a full auto weapon compared to a handgun, is night and day. Both weapons are lethal, but full auto, much more so.

Actually, a 12 gauge with 00 buck is very very lethal. Unless one trains and practices, the rounds from a FA do not go where intended after the first one. Also, I suggest that any military gun's purpose is to kill people and destroy things -- guns in my hands do not have that purpose.

[musher]

Both weapons are lethal, but full auto, much more so.

I'm still stuck trying to figure out what more dead than dead means.

[444]

There have been some good responses here, but why would anyone WANT to own a full auto weapon ?
Well, simply because they are fun. It is a high performance piece of equipment. A lot of gun owners like high performance gear.
As was mentioned, you make the mistake of believing that because the rifle cycles faster that you will automatically hit and kill more people. This is almost certainly not the case. Someone mentioned sports cars: driving a Farrari at 200 MPH takes some skill. So does hitting things while firing full auto. Owning a piano won't make you a musician. Allow me to prove this to you. If full auto automatically meant that more people would die, you would think the military would be all over it. Every guy would be firing full auto and the enemy would be falling before them like wheat before a combine. But, the reality of the situation is that full auto just means you are firing more ammo. The number of rounds of ammo per enemy soldier killed is over 100,000 to 1. This number has gone up and up and up over the years. Back when we were using bolt action military rifles, the number of rounds fired per enemy soldier killed was far less than it is today. The military even tried to curtail full auto fire by making the M16 into a 3- round burst weapon with no option for full auto. Obviously, if full auto was more effective, they wouldn't have done this. The military has other uses for full auto fire that doen't nessessarily require hitting the enemy.
So what does your average Joe do with a full auto weapon ?
He does the same kind of sport shooting that you probably do. Here locally we have matches where we shoot steel and cardboard silhouettes. You shoot matches just like IDPA or IPSC only you use a submachine gun. You can shoot drills like the El Presidente only instead of double tapping each target, you fire a two shot burst into each target. The list of what you can do is infinite. And, we arn't hurting a soul.
As far as falling into the wrong hands: I bought an M16 yesterday. I paid $14,000 for it. Do you think I am going to leave that lying around to "fall into the wrong hands"? do you think I stick that under my bed when I am not using it ? Do you think I have a "gun safe" from Wal-Mart or Harbor Freight ? Hell no.

[Half-Price Assassin]

whats the point of this thread you ask a question XD40, about civilians owning full-auto firearms, then you say something like, "i dont see the need for anyone owning one, they are WMDs". are you a troll? i dont think you should have a CCW permit, cause you might shoot and kill a human being (even if that human being is a bad person trying to seriously harm you, or your loved ones). do you just like to start arguments online or something?

are you a gun forum paTrollman?

[smince]

My own belief is that, if you follow the true spirit of the 2nd Ammendment, every American should be required to possess whatever the current battle rifle of our Armed Forces is. After all, we ARE the Militia, correct? Citizen Soldiers? The Right of the PEOPLE...

And if we had some input, maybe we would have something better than the M16/M4?

[180]

I agree with smince, in the sense that they are causing a great deal of harm to our military by not allowing civilian purchase of post-86 MG's..
I know i paid more for my MG than anything else i own..
(Less my house, the bank still owns it.. at least 98% of it..)
and that the R&D that would be funded by the civilian sector would greatly benefit both LE and Mil, and it wouldnt hurt the private MG enthusiest

[smince]

In my scenario, it would be an "issue item" instead of a "purchase item".

[OneInTheChamber]

In other words, the power of the people must be proportional to the government's power. This cannot happen if the citizens have no access to proportional weaponary.

Thats all and great for small arms; but who has the $$$ for an F-16 is the real question!!

My problem with full auto is this:

An Ak-47 shooting at 650 rounds per minute will go through an entire 30 round mag in 2.76 seconds.

One 7.62 will cost you around 50 cents from what I could find; so your fully loaded magazine will cost you $15 to shoot. That magazine will be gone in 2.76 seconds, thus you are paying $5.40 cents per second that your booger picker is on the bang switch.

That's some expensive fun. If I ever was able to get a full auto (i live in komifornia), I'd get one in .22lr; that way I wouldn't get so sad at all that money going down range to fast.

[alan]

OneInTheChamber:

I do not know for sure what the AK-47's rate of fire might be, though it seems that 650 rpm might be a bit high.

You next mention "One 7.62 will cost you around 50 cents ...". If you refer to 7.62 x 39mm rounds, last time I looked, 1000 rounds went for $100, +- a little, though I haven't the proverbial clue as to the cost of ammunition in California. If you were talking about 7.62 x 51 mm/7.62 NATO/308 Winchester, while it is more expensive, it didn't come anywhere close to $0.50/round, at least not for mil surplus.

By the way, once upon a time, I did see and fire a machinegun in 22 lr caliber. It looked like a scaled down Lewis Light Machinegun(Lewis gun), and seemed to work quite well.

As to ownership of automatic weapons in California, for members of The Great Unwashed, I thought that that was a no-no, but I could be wrong on that point.

[prime8]

In other words, the power of the people must be proportional to the government's power. This cannot happen if the citizens have no access to proportional weaponary. /// If I cant have one at an equal price as the LEO community, they shouldnt have them either!!!! The day LEO and govt agencies dont fear the people, is the day they enforce thier Desired powers!!

[TexasSIGMan]

smince said:

My own belief is that, if you follow the true spirit of the 2nd Ammendment, every American should be required to possess whatever the current battle rifle of our Armed Forces is. After all, we ARE the Militia, correct? Citizen Soldiers? The Right of the PEOPLE...

You're exactly right. The SCOTUS (in Miller) almost said the same thing.

Unfortunately they didn't just come out and say it, so we're still up the creek, but I believe they get it.

If a case with merit ever gets to them, I think we'd have an excellent chance with that argument. It just can't be somebody like Miller.

[OneInTheChamber]

You next mention "One 7.62 will cost you around 50 cents ...". If you refer to 7.62 x 39mm rounds, last time I looked, 1000 rounds went for $100, +- a little, though I haven't the proverbial clue as to the cost of ammunition in California. If you were talking about 7.62 x 51 mm/7.62 NATO/308 Winchester, while it is more expensive, it didn't come anywhere close to $0.50/round, at least not for mil surplus.

Thanks, the only numbers I could find were for boxes of 20 of .308 Win.

[mxwelch]

.50 for one round of 7.62??? Remind me to never buy ammo where you shop. I'm paying .14 a round.
Of course I'm speaking of surplus FMJ.

[mmike87]

I'll interject my personal feeling on this, please dont rip my head off. I dont see any legitimate need for a civilian to own a full auto weapon. The sole purpose of these things is to kill many people at once, they are military anti-personnel weapons. Before people respond with, "why do you need a handgun" argument, the difference in lethality of a full auto weapon compared to a handgun, is night and day. Both weapons are lethal, but full auto, much more so. Semi-auto weapons like the springfield socom .308 dont bother me, but the full auto thing scares me. If one of these guns gets into the wrong hands, there will be some serious damage done in short order. I'm entitled to this viewpoint, so please dont mock me, or try to tear me down. I'm just simply stating my position on a complicated issue.

I also see no need for a lot of other things, too. Let's ban cars with anything above a certain power to weight ratio. Only reason to have one is to go fast, right?

How long does that kitchen knife REALLY need to be?

Does anyone really NEED a 5000 square foot home?

Does anyone really NEED 5 kids? 10 dogs? Seven televisions?

Does anyone really NEED to make more than $50,000 a year?

I have SERIOUS issues with other people deciding what I do and don't need.

[Dave Haven]

I have SERIOUS issues with other people deciding what I do and don't need.

You're not the only one!

[cpermd]

Exactly what gives the government the right and authority to do any of their regulatory activities?

CP

[444]

You really want an answer to that ?

Because the American people let them. It's that simple. The American people are too busy sitting in front of the TV watching Daning with the Stars to care about what the government is doing. So, they do whatever they want.
I hope I didn't really have to tell you that.

[GeorgeF]

Its also the old chestnut of "Well it doesnt directly affectme, so why should I care?" Vast majority of people have never seen a full automatic weapon in real life, so to them its a non-issue. If you trotted out a law saying that no commercial vehicle should be made that can go over 100 mph, most people would say 'fine.' Its the plain fact that the idiots dont look at the long view and see the creeping legislation.

Most gun people probably would support some of the bans on 'any ammunition capable of going through a police officer's vest.' Yet they dont realize that covers pretty much every rifle bullet out there. So suddenly all the 'casual' gun owners cant figure out why they cant buy ammunition for their rifles any more.

Short answer, do not allow ANY legislation limiting guns, ammunition, ownership, or gun rights. Its all a stepping stone.

What really steams me is the number of frivolous bills that kept being presented in my own State (PA). There are DOZENS of them every year. Most of them never get anywhere, but you have to keep on top of them because that ONE might slip through. All kinds of things like limiting number of guns you can buy a month, tax on ammunition, assault weapon bans, conditions on where/how you can carry a gun. Its unbelievable. Thats a LOT of $$$ being wasted by these liberals that could go towards legitimate needs.

Ok, enough ranting for now.

[alan]

George F:

Re the idiotic legislation proposed in PA, take a look at where the proposers reside. Most of them from Philadelphia and or it's environs, and one or two others from Pittsburgh and it's environs. I'm located in Pittsburgh area. It is a shame that so uch time and effort has to be designated to checking such foolishness, but that's life.

as for the "casual" gun owners yu mentioned,I'm afraid tha yu are a lot more right than wrong on that point. Sad thing is that the genre never seems to learn, but that applies to many,many people.

[Springfield XD40 Man]

Now that I have had my head completely torn off, we can just let this one go. Sorry I brought it up.