# Machine guns in the 1980s- fact vs. fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100 "2019-04-26T21:56:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/21 "2019-04-27T02:21:02Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I see. So in your opinion, the laws that have been passed have severely limited the ability for people to buy new fully automatic weapons? At the risk of veering of into IMHO territory more than we are already, John Q. Public, who gives a shit about being a felon? Yes, it deters him/her, and decreases the amount of fully automatic firearms they’d buy. Joe Shit, the felon? No. They don’t use full auto because they usually don’t need those features to commit their crimes, and because it’s otherwise too much of a pain in the ass to acquire a fully automatic firearm. But gun control doesn’t prevent them from getting one, if they wanted one. Mexico is an easy counterexample—how hard is it for criminals to get a cuerno de chivo, nevermind any thing the Mexican Army feels like selling them? But look at Europe. Are criminals like outlaw motorcycle gangs deterred from acquiring things like full auto AKs and RPKs? Were the guys that did things like the Bataclan Massacre? You’re just making it difficult for people who were going to obey the law anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/22 "2019-04-27T02:24:02Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > From what I’ve read only the full-auto Uzi was open bolt. Semi-auto civilian versions were closed bolt. Didn’t it also come with things like the really long barrel? To have it qualify as a rifle, is my guess, things like AR pistols with braces not yet being in vogue, or made for fear of a bad BATFE ruling. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/23 "2019-04-27T02:25:51Z")
Again, I’m not asking about committing crimes or what Joe Shit the felon thinks. I’m asking, in your opinion, if the laws that were passed made purchasing a fully automatic weapon, or a gun that had an open-bolt design difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/24 "2019-04-27T02:29:40Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Didn’t it also come with things like the really long barrel? To have it qualify as a rifle, is my guess, things like AR pistols with braces not yet being in vogue, or made for fear of a bad BATFE ruling. If I have this right, the Uzi came with a 16" barrel otherwise it qualified as a short-barreled rifle, which is also prohibited. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/25 "2019-04-27T02:42:20Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Again, I’m not asking about committing crimes or what Joe Shit the felon thinks. I’m asking, in your opinion, if the laws that were passed made purchasing a fully automatic weapon, or a gun that had an open-bolt design difficult. But to what end are you asking? You’ve been told, repeatedly, that the things are banned. It’s not a matter of opinion, that’s a matter of fact. Banning something pretty much, ipso facto, means that it’s going to be harder to buy. 😛 That means it’s going to be ‘difficult’, by definition. Not sure how else to say it. You can’t buy open bolt semi-automatic weapons manufactured after 1986 (I think…might be '83, I don’t recall and am too drunk to look it up). Even those before that you need to jump through all sorts of hoops to purchase from someone…plus they are really expensive. Just like automatic weapons. They are treated basically the same. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/26 "2019-04-27T02:52:02Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > If I have this right, the Uzi came with a 16" barrel otherwise it qualified as a short-barreled rifle, which is also prohibited. Oh. I thought it had a long enough barrel to qualify as a rifle. Ignorance fought. Was never in the market for one, but saw them in Shotgun News and thought, “That’s silly.”. Can’t imagine why you’d go with the long barrel if you’d still have to get the stamp as an SBR. if you already have to buy the BATFE, why not get the one with the happy switch? Nah, the shorter barreled one I wanted from that time was the AUG. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/27 "2019-04-27T02:59:33Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Oh. I thought it had a long enough barrel to qualify as a rifle. Ignorance fought. Was never in the market for one, but saw them in Shotgun News and thought, “That’s silly.”. > > Can’t imagine why you’d go with the long barrel if you’d still have to get the stamp as an SBR. if you already have to buy the BATFE, why not get the one with the happy switch? Because the happy switch is $$$$$$$. Looking at an auction for a full-auto Uzi right now and seeing the starting price at over $13,000. Full-auto is fun, but it hits the pocketbook in more ways than one. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/28 "2019-04-27T03:22:20Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Because the happy switch is $$$$$$$. Looking at an auction for a full-auto Uzi right now and seeing the starting price at over $13,000. Full-auto is fun, but it hits the pocketbook in more ways than one. ☹ The happy switch is only $$$ because of the moratorium. The SBR ticket isn’t cheap either, in either money or time. Really, in this regulatory environment, I think the AR- pistol guys have a point. Or a true P-90, happy switch or no. As I pointed out to Manson all of this stuff just deters the law abiding. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/29 "2019-04-27T04:07:37Z")
In the mid 80s it was a Big Dealsup[/sup] “article of faith” that the Bad Guys were outgunning the police. Yes. there \*\*\*was \*\*\*a concern in the 80s about there being firearms around that could be “easily” converted to full auto. At the same time how much actual crime involved such weaponry was probably exaggerated in both news and entertainment media. There were newsworthy incidents where police were at a disadvantage vs. crooks with greater firepower but it was not a daily thing. More like the worry of officers with six-shooters knowing there were 16+1 pistols out there. Looking at it in hindsight one would wonder if this may not have been a way to justify appropriating cash for Police Departments to buy a lot of auto pistols, highcap mags, MP5s and AR15s… ISTM one side-effect of the type restriction in the 80s and the pseudo “ban” in the 90s was to cull the marketplace of any number of weapons that were just cheapo pieces. Meanwhile, Colt for example was not going to stop making AR15s, they could afford to make a compliant Sporter version, and did. At least in the USA it doesn’t seem the general run of criminal these days finds much of an ROI to go thru the hassle of getting the full auto versions when what’s available commercially works just fine. If you are enough of a Big Shot you probably will have a few illegally-acquired real autos to make an impression on whoever tries to muscle in, but the guy in the street’s better off with a store-bought piece. Oh sure you do find some gangbanger-image types getting legal weapons illegally modified to full auto but in the end all that does is shorten the life and increase the rate of malfunction. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/30 "2019-04-27T06:00:39Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > …This perception, right or wrong, probably was an influence behind the closing of the BATFE’s register by the Hughes amendment to the 1986 FOPA, and the follow-on Assault Weapons Ban in 1994… To address this part of the OP, the 1994 Assault Weapons ban had nothing to do with full automatic weapons. It banned normal semi auto rifles that _ **looked like** _ machine guns by virtue of having certain features like pistol grip stocks, flash hiders and removable high capacity magazines. “Assault Weapon” was a made-up term to begin with. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/31 "2019-04-27T06:53:26Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Again, I’m not asking about committing crimes or what Joe Shit the felon thinks. I’m asking, in your opinion, if the laws that were passed made purchasing a fully automatic weapon, or a gun that had an open-bolt design difficult. Maybe start a new thread outside of GQ because you’re not actually asking any questions. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/32 "2019-04-27T07:53:26Z")
**Moderator Note** > [@Slash1972](#): > > I’m asking, in your opinion, if the laws that were passed made purchasing a fully automatic weapon, or a gun that had an open-bolt design difficult. The effectiveness of particular gun laws is definitely going to take us well into IMHO territory. Feel free to start a new thread there if you’d like. There are likely existing threads on this topic as well that you may find interesting. Let’s stick to the factual topic of the OP in this thread, please. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/33 "2019-04-27T13:20:04Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Because the happy switch is $$$$$$$. Looking at an auction for a full-auto Uzi right now and seeing the starting price at over $13,000. Full-auto is fun, but it hits the pocketbook in more ways than one. ☹ That’s a lot of money for a chick’s gun. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/34 "2019-04-27T14:23:09Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Moreover, open-bolt designs are really suited for firearms with a really large rate of fire. I’m meaning belt-fed firearms, things like the M240 or M2 machine guns: where the amount of ammunition supplied is measured in terms of boxes, not magazines. One reason for open bolt designs was facilitating cooling in a high volume of fire weapon like a true (not submachine gun or automatic rifle) machine gun. The barrel is naturally open for air to flow through between bursts and there’s not a chambered round getting heated up and possibly ‘cooking off’, IOW firing on its own. The other reason more relevant to classic submachine gun designs was simplicity. Some open bolt blowback operated SMG’s had/have extremely simply operating mechanisms: just a weight, the bolt, which doesn’t lock in place when closed, with a raised nub on the face serving as a firing pin when it strikes the cartridge, a spring to drive it, a catch controlled by the trigger to release or hold it. You can’t come up with a closed bolt system quite as simple. And likewise making such a simple design resistant to illicit conversion to automatic not practical either. Among weapons with some kind of bolt locking device there’s less of a difference in complexity between open and closed. A small nitpick, Browning’s recoil operated machine guns like the M2 are basically closed bolt designs. There have been open bolt conversion kits offered on the market in recent times, but the overwhelming majority of few million M2 .50 cal types and their smaller .30 cousins have been closed bolt. The M240, aka FN MAG, is a distant relative of another Browning design, the BAR: gas operated, open bolt. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/35 "2019-04-27T14:26:12Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > To address this part of the OP, the 1994 Assault Weapons ban had nothing to do with full automatic weapons. It banned normal semi auto rifles that _ **looked like** _ machine guns by virtue of having certain features like pistol grip stocks, flash hiders and removable high capacity magazines. “Assault Weapon” was a made-up term to begin with. > > Dennis True, but that was almost certainly a result of the previous panic about machinegunny-looking firearms. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/36 "2019-04-27T14:42:46Z")
I finally chased down two fictional examples from that era that I wanted to mention, courtesy of the Internet Movie Firearms Database. 1984 The Terminator. In the movie, the Terminator acquires an Armalite AR-18 rifle (unlikely because that’s a full-auto rifle). In the novelization of the movie it’s the semi-auto AR-180 version, which the Terminator converts by “filing off the interrupter pin” (I don’t know if that was actually possible). 1999 Law & Order, S10E1. Jack McCoy goes after the manufacturers of the fictional “Rolf 9” machine pistol (‘played by’ an Armitage International Scarab Skorpion) for marketing a gun that’s deliberately designed to be easy to illegally convert. ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/37 "2019-04-27T15:10:16Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I finally chased down two fictional examples from that era that I wanted to mention, courtesy of the Internet Movie Firearms Database. > > 1984 The Terminator. In the movie, the Terminator acquires an Armalite AR-18 rifle (unlikely because that’s a full-auto rifle). In the novelization of the movie it’s the semi-auto AR-180 version, which the Terminator converts by “filing off the interrupter pin” (I don’t know if that was actually possible). It’s not. Sometimes people look at a diagram of a semi-auto trigger group, see a part labeled “disconnector”, and think “Aha! That’s what stops it from firing full auto.” In reality, the disconnector prevents the hammer from riding the bolt forward and resting on an unfired cartridge. Removing it would make your semi-auto gun at best an unreliable burst fire gun and more likely turn it into a straight-pull bolt action. Open-bolt semi-auto guns, which in many ways work oppositely of a closed-bolt gun, are easy to convert and likewise regulated as machine guns as mentioned upthread. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/38 "2019-04-27T16:24:43Z")
From what I’m reading, 99% of the full-auto weapons problem in the 1980s was solved by simply making most open-bolt designs NFA items. I’m doubtful whether the follow-on legislation was necessary or useful. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/39 "2019-04-27T16:43:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I finally chased down two fictional examples from that era that I wanted to mention, courtesy of the Internet Movie Firearms Database. > > 1984 The Terminator. In the movie, the Terminator acquires an Armalite AR-18 rifle (unlikely because that’s a full-auto rifle). In the novelization of the movie it’s the semi-auto AR-180 version, which the Terminator converts by “filing off the interrupter pin” (I don’t know if that was actually possible). The T-800 picks up an Uzi and an AR-180 at the gun shop. Both would have been semi-auto. IIRC in an interview with Schwarzenegger from _Soldier of Fortune_ back in 1984 they were going to have a scene where you saw the T-800 converting both firearms to full auto, but they decided to drop it. There’s far more involved to converting a firearm to full-auto than just filing one part, but then the movie wouldn’t have been so cool. 🆒 I was never a big fan, but I wonder if the show _Miami Vice_ pushed the full-auto in the hands of criminals buttons the most during the 80s. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100/40 "2019-04-27T16:49:51Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > The other reason more relevant to classic submachine gun designs was simplicity. Some open bolt blowback operated SMG’s had/have extremely simply operating mechanisms: just a weight, the bolt, which doesn’t lock in place when closed, with a raised nub on the face serving as a firing pin when it strikes the cartridge, a spring to drive it, a catch controlled by the trigger to release or hold it. You can’t come up with a closed bolt system quite as simple. And likewise making such a simple design resistant to illicit conversion to automatic not practical either. I’m surprised nobody’s modified an open bolt design to shoot 20/28/.410 shells. You wouldn’t even need rifling and presumably practical accuracy would be sufficient for most purposes, including shits & giggles. OP: Movies and TV shows vastly overestimate how useful long bursts of automatic fire are (aside from suppression and anti-air). They do look cool though so you see them plenty. Criminals tend to prefer handguns for portability and concealability. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/machine-guns-in-the-1980s-fact-vs-fiction/833100.md?page=3)