He was referring to NFA weapons, also known as Class III weapons. There have not been any new automatic weapons registered since 1986 due to the Hughes Amendment to Firearm Owners Protection Act. As a result, the number of weapons of that type available are finite and only reducing in number, making them very cost-prohibitive. In addition to the price of the firearm there is an arduous procedure to get approved for one, taking anywhere from 3-6 months, a $200 fee, fingerprinting/mugshot/Law Enforcement sign-off (which is not at all assured), and stringent requirements for even taking them to the range (never get caught without the paperwork, it stays with the weapon at all times).
It’s very cost prohibitive, and well out of range of most gun owners.
The high cost of starting a newspaper is not a direct result of the government setting a limit on the number of newspapers that may be published by civilians, either.
I was a gun dealer in the 1980’s. Before the registry was frozen, full auto variants of in-production weapons were priced about 4x what the semi-auto version fetched. In today’s money, an AR-15 would be about $800 and an M-16 around $3200. A registered M-16 receiver from the limited pool available today will easily fetch $12k to $15k or more. That is directly as a result of the registry being frozen and artificially limiting supply.
Get back to me when the government creates a registry of newspaper publishing equipment and then freezes it.
Get back to me when the second ammendment says “the right of the People to keep and bear **any and all **arms shall not be infringed.” My free speech, for example, is restricted in cases where I’m deliberately trying to cause harm. (“Kill all the niggers,” e.g., is not protected speech.)
As a matter of fact, it usually is protected, unless you and a bunch of other people are preparing to attack a group of African-Americans. The standard is “imminent lawless action”.
And, since you brought it up, the case that used to be the controlling decision with regard to the 2nd Amendment, US v. Miller, explicitly said the following:
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Machine guns were in common use at the time, ergo… and that from a decision held up by gun-control advocates as the standard for 70 years.
That particular argument that you’re making doesn’t have much traction. Not even the Brady Campaign makes that argument anymore to my knowledge.
Airman said it better, but roughly speaking, I’m happy with a compromise that drops the price of an M-16 from effectively $15000 to effectively $5000-7000, with the bulk of that being the simple physical cost of the firearm.
Also known as Title 2. His proposal, though, would make it legal to manufacture a $50 slamfire automatic, but there’d be that pesky issue of a 50000% mark-up for the related training and licensing.
I’m not following the reasoning that a many-thousand dollar legally mandated barrier to entry is a valid condition on the exercise of a right any more than I’d understand the argument that a poll tax just makes sense.
Politically, it’s more likely to be implemented than “free-for-all availability” since it enables moderates who worry about guns to be reassured that the heavy assault weapons are in the hands of trained people instead of any random yutz.
Personally, I’d find it hard to trust anyone willing to use a $50 slamfire automatic conversion with anything more dangerous than a shoelace, and I’d have to think long and hard about that, Sten guns and SKS-types nonwithstanding.
Just like free speech has reasonable and sensible restrictions to prevent it being used to harm others directly, I think a reasonable interpretation of the second amendment can allow for training and licensing. Plus there’s the fact that we already have insanely onerous restrictions on fully automatic weapons of any type, and “steps toward re-legalization of fully automatic weapons” are better than “hold out for the whole enchilada and wonder why it keeps getting worse.”
You’re basically saying “any old idiot who can afford to cobble a semi together out of junkyard parts should be able to drive one, CDL or not.” To a lot of people in the center of the debate, that makes no sense whatsoever, “fundamental right” be damned, and they are going to vote that way.
Perhaps she was thinking of all of the school murders that have taken place. I immediately thought of the, what, Ft. Worth? Dallas? church social where there were about 12 plus or minus people murdered. 5+ or - years ago.
People are too thin skinned about guns. Good thing they weren’t at a baseball game, where people have baseball bats, the known weapon for Mafia ‘enforcement’ activities.
Or a restaurant, where there were knives in the presence of children!!!
You have got to get a grip as to what guns are for. She wasn’t firing off a few rounds every time a play wasn’t made.
IIRC, “Kill all the niggers” is protected, because it doesn’t meet the standards for a real crime. “Kill X nigger, at X time” is close to, if not actually, illegal. Last I heard, that is. Things change.
But the Amendment doesn’t say ‘just certain’ arms, either, so you don’t really have any, well, ammo, in that clip, do you??
Yeah, sorry, I should have been more clear. I was thinking along all the lines of “Go grab your robe and meet me on the corner so we can start going door-to-door.” Like the kind of coordination on the radio during the massacres in Rwanda.
See, I thought about bringing up ebola, but it’s as bad as HIV in its own way–instead of being too hard to transmit, it kills too quickly to spread very far.
Now, maybe an **airborne **ebola would have some promise!