The number of laws is largely irrelevant. What does matter is their efficacy.
What on earth does that mean?
No.
This.
By Minty from his link.
I hope you don’t get it for these reasons, if I think of more, I’ll post later.
Cost / benefit. IMO it would be a boondoggle.
With what is going on in the last months concerning freedoms that we are being much more restricted in than ever before and no apparent benefit forthcoming.
Why guns? Guns are way down the list on what tools kill the most people.
You don’t like them?
If I gave you the $$$ to do ½ of what you want, you will give the me same % of $$$ needed to fix ½ of the people killer that is much larger than guns? You know, the one I don’t like and want to fix?
I really hope you never get it your way Minty. I’ll keep voting against it. See you at the polls. Or will you admit that you want the 9th court to do all the constitutional work for the country?
Great, I love the political process. That’s right where guns should be, in my opinion. See ya at the polls.
minty: if we have sufficient laws and enfocement on machineguns (legally held ones are registered, their owners’ backgrounds checked thoroughly, and their collections, paperwork, and domiciles inspected) that there is only one violent crime committed within several decades by legal owners, how do you think more laws are going to deter illegal owners and criminals?
The illegally held ones are not registered, the police have little if any idea where they are, where they are coming from, where they are going, and whom they are going to.
How will additional burdens on legal owners of these weapons help law enforcement track illegal automatic weapons? By making it even harder for legal owners to obtain them?
Unless you are suggesting a credible link between legal owners and illegal owners? That the legal owners are somehow a conduit to the black market?
Because it is already illegal to possess an automatic weapon in most states; it is illegal to possess one that isn’t registered w/the BATF, having paid the special taxes, been fingerprinted/photographed/background checked/investigated; it is illegal to convert semi-auto to full-auto; it is illegal to transport, import or export a large swath of them (if not all) w/o special gov’t permission; it is illegal to transfer ownership or possession of them w/o scads of paperwork and official notice and oversight.
The people who can afford them have a substantial financial stake in not running afoul of the already labyrinthian regulations and laws to jeopardize their freedom, property and livelihood by engaging in illegal activities.
Just what more will additional burdens on legal owners accomplish?
I believe I addressed those questions in the linked thread. The same benefits of general registration that I identified there are equally applicable to machine guns.
That is not general registration, that is the stance of someone who is terrified of personal responsibility. It is already like that for machine-guns. You are indicating that you want that for all firearms. And that kind of focus indicates to me that you are not debating but are just blowing smoke.
I am responsible for my guns just like I am for my car, child, kitchen knives, while I have them. If they are sold, (I didn’t get squat for the kid,) I am not responsible for what the other person does with them unless the intent is judged to be an unlawful act on my part and there are many laws about that already. You insist on more?
Just out of a desire to know who I am dealing with, do you advocate the same things for ANYTHING else, or just guns?
Gus, I honestly don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.
Aside, of course, from the content-free, bullshit rhetoric. “Terrified of personal responsibility.” “Just blowing smoke.” Whatever.
Just wanted to pop in and point out one thing:
Just speaking from a technical standpoint, this can literally mean any firearm.
In the late 1700s, a French musketmaker made a “full auto” flintlock (!) by simply repositioning the frizzen pan in relation to the barrel, and loading a series of powder charges seperated by lead balls drilled with thin channels filled with a slower-burning powder. One pull of the trigger could release up to 12 to 14 shots. Sure, it was a roman candle, but it worked.
In the mid-1800s, a gunsmith noticed how grass and leaves were blown about by his rifle’s muzzle blast. So as an experiment, he made an articulated “spoon” arrangement over the barrel that, through a linkage, used this energy to recock the mechanism. The rifle was a Winchester lever-action, converted to semi-auto in less than a day with what were essentially blacksmith’s tools. The next day, he added a tripper that fired the gun when the action closed (seen on the lever gun used in the TV show “The Rifleman” as well- it was simply a screw threaded through the handguard of the cocking lever) and made it full-auto.
And back in the sixties, according to the story, a man brought an old Colt SAA (single action army, the old “cowboy” type revolver) in to a gunsmith because it had the tendency to “go full auto” on him. The 'smith was naturally disbelieving, but tried it himself (at a range.) He loaded two rounds, thumbed back the hammer (which on this sort of pistol, has to be done for every shot) and pulled the trigger. Damned if both shots didn’t go off.
Turns out the firing pin (attached to and sticks out of the hammer) had worn/eroded with age, as the gun dated to the late 1800s when metallic cartridges still used somewhat corrosive blackpowder, so as to be nearly a point. When this point struck a primer, it tended to pierce it, and a small bit of the combustion gas would be vented backwards, blowing the hammer back to nearly fully cocked again. This action also turned the cylinder as normal, to line up a fresh round.
And since the shooter’s finger was still holding the trigger down (a single-action revolver having little need for a disconnecting sear) the hammer simply fell again to start it all over again until it ran out of ammo (or the shooter managed to release the trigger.)
Lastly, what about those little spring-loaded “trigger activators”? Clip it to the trigger guard for instant, removable “conversion” to a form of full-auto. They’re even completely legal.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
My intention in linking to that old thread was to answer Gus’s attempt at turning this thread into a general purpose, gun control free-for-all. Having already set forth my position in that one, I have no desire to reopen the discussion here, in what had been a narrowly focused discussion of the nature of the Second Amendment.
Purely a technical-details post from a technical hardware guy, Mintyfreshbreath. Please feel free to return to your little hopscotch game.
I thought an armed society was a polite society? Apparently not.
Who said I was armed? Anyway, bolding error aside, I did compliment you on your Mintyfreshbreath. 
Besides, if you didn’t have such a big, red button with a flashing neon sign that says You Better Not Push This! perhaps it wouldn’t get pushed quite so often.
There’s a word for that.
Geez, go out and play 18 holes and bust some birds and ya guys are already on the 6th page!! Anyhoo, sorry for the misinterpretation of my postJohnny, as I am well aware of the “assault weapon” fallacy. I was just trying to point out that any crime committed with a weapon that falls into some of the liberal media’s interpretation of an “ugly” gun is front page news. The Muhammad/Malvo shootings is a pretty good example. Thanks for those links minty. Oh, almost forgot, Johnny, IIRC those guys in LA legally purchased their M15’s, and then used an illegal conversion kit to make 'em full auto. Let me know if this is in error.
It’s been a few years, but I’m certain the robbers were using Chinese AK-47 copies. Whether they were illegally (minty) converted, or they were smuggled machine guns I don’t know.
[A few minutes later…]
I was looking for a photo, so I googled “north hollywood”, “bank robbery” and “ak-47”. I turned up several results that noted the robbers used “ak-47 style assault rifles”, but got tired of looking for photos.
The police went to the now-closed B&B Gun Shop and borrowed civilian AR-15 rifles to return fire. Had the gun store not been there, I think that there is little doubt that there would have been greater loss of life than just a couple of baddies. Sadly, B&B is closed now due to pressures from the city. Talk about biting the hand that fed you!
In any case, the robbers were using AKs, and they were either illegally (minty smuggled as full-autos or they were illegally (minty) converted. The point is, they were illegal weapons and no number of additional laws would have stopped them.
Possible correction.
I entered “ak-47” or “m-16” into google. There were a few pages that said one robber had an AK-47 and the other had an M-16. Other sites don’t mention an M-16, but only AK-47s. I did not find any photos that I would use to tell exactly who had what.
Goodness, a single instance where “additional laws” arguably would not have prevented a crime. Guess that about wraps it up for gun control, huh?
C’mon, minty, that was beneath such an [John Cleese voice] esteemed barrister, such as yourself, but maybe not IRL[/John Cleese voice]…
minty: You know as well as I do that there are any number of cases I could bring up where additional laws would not have prevented a high-profile crime. And you have yet to cite even a single example of a legally-possessed machine gun having been used in a crime.