And, euros, we don’t buy guns at fucking supermarkets. Get that straight. Crab legs, yes, guns no.
What’s the difference between a submachine gun and a semiautomatic? Is it just that a submachine gun is capable of fully automatic fire while using a magazine instead of needing a belt? And are they capable of selective fire?
Darn tootin’.
All you can find at 7-11s are wimpy semi-automatic rifles and handguns, and they keep running out of the conversion kits. Shop N’ Gos do carry fully automatic weapons though.
As to the OP, it’s actually just as easy to have a driver’s license as it is to maintain a machine gun. You take care of the driver’s license at one window, then step over to the next line to renew your machine gun permit (they used to do this in reverse order, but it made the driver’s license clerks nervous).
Well, I know of a little corner store in Pennsylvania where you can buy a pack of gum, a cup of coffee, some ice, a hunting knife, and a long gun. This was in the same town with a college whose security would hold your rifle or shotgun or bow (and I knew various people with more than one of these for different seasons) in their gun locker for free. And I suppose I could go to Wal-Mart and get my groceries, a movie, some alcohol, antifreeze, maybe a new shirt, and that shotgun I’ve been wanting. (I’ve been wanting to get back into trap shooting since I got my shotgun merit badge 8 years ago. I just haven’t had the money to pay for it.)
A sub-machine gun is a select fire fully automatic weapon that fires a pistol round, often 9mm or .45. Popular examples include the HK MP5, Uzi, or Thompson.
Traditionally, something called a “machine gun” was not something you wanted to be carrying around. They were big, heavy, usually mounted to something and often serviced by a crew, and fired a big round.
In the latter half of the 20th century, the select fire “assault rifle” came into vogue, the AK and M-16 being prime examples. These guns fire an intermediate sized round. Whilst fully automatic, they don’t really fit in with the traditional notion of machine guns, at least in my book.
So, I suggest we either have at least 3 categories of auto weapons, or take the ATF stance and call everything that can go full auto a machine gun.
A submachine gun is a specific type of gun - a typically fully automatic or select fire weapon that fires pistol cartridges while typically being much larger than a pistol but smaller than a rifle. Semi-automatic is a more general term that can apply to handguns, rifles, shotguns, whatever - it just means that you get one round per trigger pull.
Machine guns fire rifle rounds, typically supported with a bipod or tripod, and are used generally to establish a base of fire or maintain a line of fire, whereas submachine guns are individual weapons meant to be used against individual targets.
A light machine gun typically looks something like this: M249 light machine gun - Wikipedia
A medium or heavy machine gun typically looks something like this:
Whereas submachine guns are something like this: Heckler & Koch MP5 - Wikipedia or this Sten - Wikipedia
They serve completely different roles.
To clarify and simplify: There are two mixed concepts here.
Automatic action versus semi-automatic action, and Submachine gun, assault rifle, machine gun.
Automatic Action: Pull the trigger, have the capability of firing more than one bullet.
This can be as many bullets as are on the box or belt, or in the clip. It can also be limited, typically to three rounds. It can also be limited to one round, but any automatic action has the capability to fire more than one shot.
Semi-Automatic Action: Pull the trigger, one bullet fires. It will not fire more than one bullet each time you pull the trigger.
Submachine guns: Uzi, H&K MP5: Typically automatic action. There may be exceptions. Generally, they have full auto, three round burst, and single shot capabilities. They look like big pistols with a clip, generally. Military, police SWAT.
Machine Guns: Browning M2HB: Big-ass guns, fully automatic action. Most machine guns can not fire slower than fully automatic. These are the gun equivalent of factory presses. They tend to fire for minutes at a time, can have water cooling system, and are designed not so much to kill people, as to make REAL DAMN SURE nobody enters an area by filling the entire area with bullets, constantly. They’re like rifles, only bigger and the larger ones are vehicle-mounted. Military only, generally.
Light Machine Guns: The SAW, and some others. Automatic action, man portable, designed for light area interdiction, cover fire. Capable of automatic, burst, and single shots. Larger than your average rifle.
Assault Rifle: M-16, AR-15: Sometimes automatic, sometimes semi-automatic. The AR-15 is identical to the M-16, but the AR-15 is semi-automatic, and the M-16 has an automatic action. An assault rifle is defined on shape rather than mechanics. It’s a rifle, usually with a clip, that ‘looks aggressive’. Some are fully automatic. This is rare for recent weapons. Most with automatic actions are single shot or three round burst. All with semi-automatic actions, are, by definition, single shot per pull.
Rifle: A longarm with a rifled barrel. Any kind of action. Rifled barrels have a groove down them that makes the bullet spin for accuracy at distance. Almost all guns have rifled barrels these days.
Longarm: Something with a long barrel.
Pistol: Something with a very short barrel.
Any questions?
I think I have a hunch how this inaccurate factoid gets spread. Take a look at this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=416939&page=1, where Anaamika posts a list of Virginia gun law factoids including:
Yes, it is true that the state of Virginia has no limitation or ban on the sale of fully-automatic assault weapons. That is a factually accurate statement. Except it leads to a wildly inaccurate conclusion, which is that people in Virginia can purchase fully-automatic weapons as easily as they can purchase other firearms.
This is a tactic that reminds me of creationists combing through “The Origin Of Species” to find quotes that appear to show that Darwin didn’t believe in evolution. And then those lists get cut and pasted into thousands of glurge emails.
Do you actually need a CCW to carry onto public property, or as the name implies, just to have it concealed? If the latter then the analogy is inapt.
They were at the Frankfort airport last time I went through there.
I see that Foundintranslation mentioned the airports. Carry on!
Well, when you’ve got one whole runway to protect, you can’t be too careful.
Let me add a bit more information for those of you not in easily gun accessable states.
Here in Arizona, the process for getting a handgun (up to semi-automatic) is, arguably, easier than getting a driver’s license – except that you’ll need a driver’s license (or other state recognized ID) to get a handgun.
To purchase a semi-automatic handgun, you need to show up at a gun shop [or any weekend gun show], pick the handgun that you’d like from behind the glass - and hand the clerk a couple hundred dollars. The clerk will take a copy of your driver’s license, and fax it, with a completed questionaire (asking important YES/NO questions about your felony and mental status) to the local sherif’s office. In roughly the time that it takes you to pick out a holster and some amunition, the SO will fax back your approval. [Unless, of course, you are a felon, have outstanding warrants, etc.]
This process is the same for nearly any pistol, rifle, or “assault weapon” provided it’s semi-automatic (or less).
You now have a new semi-automatic pistol. Store policy prevents you from loading the gun on the grounds. Walk outside. Load your pistol. Place your pistol in your new holster – in plain sight – and proceed to walk around town with your new guy.
Entire length of process, ~20 minutes.
To obtain a CCW in Arizona, you must take a one-day class and pass a written exam (of roughly the same difficulty as a driver’s exam), and you must pass a basic firearms profeciancy exam where you shoot a target and clear your weapon (argubaly the same difficulty as, say, a driver’s test). Your new CCW (once approved by the local SO) lets you cary concealed.
You can not, however, cary your new firearm in federal buildings, schools and places that serve alcohol – as well as anywhere else that asks you not to. Note that, if you’re being technical, “school zones” are pretty wide things, and cross streets, extend into neighborhoods. You can argue that it’s almost impossible to avoid “school zones.”
Yeah, I’m sitting here going “Since when does Frankfort have a commercial airport?”
Besides the obvious strawman exaggeration of American’s getting machine guns easier than driver’s license’s ( 
), I think there is another point here. Though its a cliche, a lot of Europeans don’t realize something else about the US…its a big country. Its also a country made up of individual states…and nearly every one of those states has a slightly different (or in some cases a radically different) set of laws and proceedures to not only get a driver’s license, but to aquire a gun.
Just the sillyness of some Euro making a blanket statement about the US at ALL shows his/her ignorance of the country, its laws, how it functions and the people who live here. There is a HUGE difference between, say, the laws in New York and the laws in Arizona, or the laws in California and the ones in Texas!
-XT
Depends where you live. In Colorado you can theoretically carry open except perhaps in certain cities like Denver (I’m not sure about Denver laws, as I try to avoid the place). I frequently carry open in the wild, but suburban cops WILL give you a hard time if you carry in town. Occasionally one will happen upon a building with a sign that says “Open carry of firearms prohibited”.
You know, I breezed through this thread so maybe I missed it. But has anybody actually considered how many people die or get hurt via automobile versus how many people get shot by machine guns? Or guns in general? My impression is that cars are the (extremely) more dangerous object, and by a ridiculous margin. But I don’t have any statistics to back me up right now, just a hunch.
Fortunately though, you can’t buy a car at Wal-Mart.
Yep. The Polizei began carrying Uzis at major airports back in the mid- to late-80s, after a series of terroris bombings, shootings, and hijackings at European airports. They most certainly did not carry them around anywhere else that I ever saw, and I lived over there for quite a few years. The notion that they were “all” armed with submachineguns is patently absurd.
There have been two documented murder in the United States with a machine gun since they were banned in 1934. One was a contract killing done by a Dayton, Ohio, police officer in 1988. Cite.
The other case involved a civilian, in 1992.
Crime with automatic weapons, Hollywood notwithstanding, simply does not happen. They cost too much and are so tightly regulated that they are little more than expensive curios.
Another gun control success story! 
Israeli submachine guns that Israel doesn’t even manufacture anymore? I’d figure them for H&Ks.