FWIW Armored Personel(sp?) Carriers and Tanks with road wheels are legal to drive on the road in Texas and IIRC Missouri. The weapons have to be disabled and I am sure you have to be rather careful where you go and it would need tags, plates and inspections but they are legal here, although I am sure there limits. Tanks for sale.com has an interesting selection(sorry on the stupid BB tablet and can’t provide link). My lottery fantasy is to own a couple of APC’s. You know to drop the kids off at school and do the grocery shopping, that sort of thing.
It’s a fantasy, until you look at how much gas it takes to run one of those things! Go all out with an M1 Abrams, and it’s 0.6 mpg. Using the prices at a local gas station, it would could $1954.35 to fill up! (I know they also use other things besides gasoline). Even if I won Mega Millions, my frugality would let me.
As has been mentioned, it is already illegal. If you mean “impossible to do regardless of legal consequences” then you need to come up with a way that that could be accomplished. With enough time, practice, patience, and the will, you can make virtually any part of a gun with a piece of stock and hand tools, and do it pretty easily with a lathe available used for under $1K to a careful shopper. With the one exception of the “drop-in auto sear” for the AR-15, the modifications require at a minimum, acquiring full-auto parts (you are already in violation of the law if you also own a gun they might be fitted to) and then drilling some precisely located holes in the gun. Precisely as within a few thousands of a inch or it may not work. In some cases these holes will overlap existing holes in civilian versions, just to make it harder.
Many modern AR-15 lower receivers have some differences that make them more difficult for the lawless to modify. As far as I know, the NRA has taken no position on such changes. I wouldn’t expect them to, except to encourage such. Perhaps if the changes impaired performance or raised the price significantly they would voice an objection.
Frankly, I don’t know of any gun organization that advocates illegal firearms modifications, and I have seen people banned from popular internet discussion boards just for asking how to do it. There are some discussion boards about the ins and outs of LEGALLY modifying firearms, and there is always a careful attention to staying within the law. There is a lot of frustrated grousing over what can’t be legally done, but AFAIK no rational person is going to risk serious club-fed time just for the heck of it.
Honestly, this is virtually a non-problem. There are some occasional advertisements in “Shotgun News” for auto-sears, that can’t possibly be legal. These are purported to be BATF sting operations on discussion boards…I have no credible cite to support that notion, however.
Nitpick: It is illegal (and has been since '86) to make new fully automatic firearms that are transferable to civilians. It is perfectly legal to make new ones that are transferable to law enforcement organizations, the military, or to Class III dealers (the guys who sell machine guns to the cops and military). If I had any brains, I would have bought a whole bunch of machine guns in '85.
Me too, except for the being very underage at the time. I wish I bought some SKSs for $200 a few years ago then sold for $350-400 after the “OMG Obama” stuff started.
Can’t you make your own suppressors (silencers) if you pay the $200 and file a form? No need to pay the $2250 to get a manufacturers license?
That wasn’t an actual M4, just a civilian AR-15. One rarely finds selective fire SBRs over the counter at Wally-World. That, and Colts generally require a blood sacrifice and the summoning of a demon to find at a reasonable price.
It is not a full auto. Wyoming or not, there are still federal restrictions. Restriction number 1 means that the true full-auto M4 would cost more than 6% tax. It would be that sales tax, plus a $200 tax payable to BATFE. Restriction number 2 means that there is no full-auto transferable M4 on the market for less than several thousand dollars.
Wal-Mart deals in mass quantities of stuff they can order and stock. There are limited quantities of transferable full-autos out there. It isn’t something that Wal-Mart can just keep ordering to sell at a bargain.
Surprised to see that it is a Bushmaster! Regardless of its marketed model number, what Atakapa was getting at is that “M4” and “M4A1” are specific military issued weapons. In a thread about “military grade weapons”, it is important to limit the definition of “M4” to the military definition.
LOL. No, for AR variants it is as easy as buying a complete upper assembly with short barrel. As simple as changing your shoes. But it cannot be done without the approval first.
So one can buy one of these Wal-Mart rifles like this:
I’ve never been much interested in AR-15s, but if it was $500, I’d be tempted. Still, from a quick Google, a .223 (or better, 5.56 NATO) upper would be not a whole lot different from $450 or less, and you get both.
As a practical matter, the cost is far too prohibitive for many armaments to be maintained in private hands. Even small arms cost thousands up front, hundreds or thousands to shoot regularly, and added costs in maintenance and security. I’m honestly of the opinion that the government could easily just get rid of all legal restrictions and say, “sure, go nuts,” for anything up to and including a nuke.
Seriously? A nuclear weapon? Yep. Got a spare $10–25 billion lying around to develop one? Good luck getting the tools and resources for it, by the way, even if you’ve got the money. How about the security costs to keep someone from taking it from you? Feel like severing ties with any rational human being? And earning a boycott from any business run by non-sociopaths or that relies on customers?
Also, you’ll be first on the target list of every single nuclear power in range since you’re much less predictable than a regular government. Better hope you never need contact with the outside world again because even if you think you can protect yourself from being abducted with a dead-man switch on the bomb, you will need food, or medicine, or something sooner or later that someone can use as leverage against you, or simply refuse you access to.
Have fun sitting in your nuclear-armed compound isolated from the rest of mankind!
Look, there is quite a substantial difference in an *actual *M4 Carbine that the military gets from its manufactures, and whatever AR-15 your local department store happens to be stocking on the shelf on a given day. Those are rifles aimed at hobbyists for the most part (the fact that they are sold at the same place you can buy milk, toothpaste, and tampons is a big clue) and you’ll need to shop around online or at dedicated gun stores for something of higher quality. The “M4A3” is a specific model of rifle from Bushmaster which is a mid-grade manufacturer of AR-15 rifles that are not made to the same standard (full auto capabilities aside, I’m talking choice of steel, barrel twist, BCG design) as what the people in the military are issued. The name is marketing, nothing more. They could have named it up the “Spring Meadows Carbine” for all it matters. It is important to keep in mind that these rifles are much more than their external appearance. Most AR-15’s look about the same, but the difference in an Olympic Arms AR and an AR from a company like Bravo Company/BCM or LMT is like the difference between a Hummer H2 and a military HUMVEE. There is something called a Technical Data Package that specifies how M4 carbines are to be manufactured and assembled. Certain companies (like the two I mentioned, among others) manufacture rifles that come *very *close to the TDP in just about every way except for the fully automatic sear and some minor difference in the lower receiver into which the sear is inserted. It is this TDP, adherence to, or deviation from, that determines what is or isn’t an accurate, semi-automatic M4 replica for civilians, not marketing or names.
“M4” is a name for a particular family of rifles (including the M4, M4A1, Mk18, etc.) built by a particular group of companies (the main being Colt Defense). The terms get tossed around so much that people either have lost sight of this or were entirely ignorant of it in the first place. Xerox machines and Q-tips come to mind. Also, I’m pretty sure that name is or was trademarked by Colt at some point. The sticker may have said that in the store, but I’m not aware of any company today that officially markets a rifle that is named “M4” or “M4A1.” They’ll usually say M4-style or M4 Type in the literature, or name it something that sounds or looks close. For example, the company LWRC names their AR riles the M6 series, and we’ve already seen that example of Bushmaster using M4A3.
