Suppose I wanted to get one of those guns Arnold used in Terminator 2. Obviously it would not be legal for the average person to have one, so what circumstances would be neccesary to legally get one of these?
I think before you even get into the legality of the thing, you’d need to be able to afford one, I’d imagine they are pretty expensive. Most of these vulcan-like machine guns are made for vehicle or helicopter mount, so finding a handheld one might be hard or impossible.
Now, supposing you are in the US, and supposing we disregard state law for a moment, you will need what’s called a Class III permit for that particular destructive device. It’s a bit of a hassle, and hard to get approved in a lot of places, but basically you pay a tax, you fill out some forms, get some signatures, and you’re set. Somebody will be along to give us the specifics I’m sure.
A handheld minigun is an exercise in futility: even if you could find one light enough to carry for a very short period, there’s no way on earth you could carry enough ammo for more that 5 seconds of rapid fire. There’s a reason these are vehicular weapons.
Are they even for sale to private citizens?
In the end there has to be a way for a private entity to either buy it or build it and fire it, at least for testing, after all, I don’t see the military putting the things together themselves.
But does this private entity have of policy of selling them to civilians? Perhaps its contract with the military precludes this.
A standard Minigun, such as those on helicopters, is in 7.62mm caliber. There were a few man-portable 5.56mm (.223) prototypes, but it was found to be impractical due to the weight of the gun, the ammo and the batteries. Also, the ejected brass was a hazard to the shooter. There are probably just a few .223 miniguns in existence.
There are a few miniguns in private possession in the US. Mike Dillon, owner and founder of Dillon Precision Products owns one, for example. In fact, he owns a very large collection of machine guns. What makes machineguns a rich man’s hobby is that there is a strictly limited supply of them available for private sale. That is a result of the Hughes Ammendment to the Firearms Owners Prrotection Act of 1986 (signed into law by Ronald Reagan). It froze the number of machineguns int he civilian market so that no new pieces could be sold. Prices skyrocketed and the same limited pool of guns has just been shuffled around ever since. It should be noted though, that even before 1986 the minigun would have been a rare and expensive toy.
What did Arny shoot then? I wouldn’t think they would fabricate a full gun out of sheet metal. And even if they did, they would still need to get the thing to shoot blanks that fast. Seems easier to take real, working guns and fill them with blanks–which would indicate that there is such a gun, which can at least be fired by someone the size of Arnold.
(Though I can’t recall a scene in which a minigun appeared so I have no idea if the OP even is talking about something that was in the movie.)
The scene where Arnold is standing in the open window of the Cyberdyne Systems building, spraying the police cars with gunfire. That multi-barrelled gun he’s using is known as a Minigun.
Jesse Ventura also used one in Predator. Even with blanks, it kicked so much he had to be supported from behind to fire it, according to the Special Features on my DVD.
The same minigun is used in both movies. It is not actually man-portable. The actor (or double) is strapped into it for filming the scenes where it is fired. According to several accounts that I have read this is a notably unpleasant experience. Lightweight, non-firing mock-ups are used for scenes where the gun is carried. Watch the movies. There are no scenes where the minigun is fired on the move.
No, but whatever the private entity did to be able to make it/buy it in the first place you can do as well. Perhaps part of it might be getting a military contract (if you’re making an ICBM) but I think certain gunsmithing licenses would allow you to make/own any kind of machine gun you wish.
It is probably possible to make a mechanized gatling gun that fires very small caliber very fast and still have it handheld. Something like .22LR, with something that small you could even carry enough ammo with you to make it worthwhile. Now what the hell would you do with a mechanized gatling gun that fired .22LR, I’m not going to ask, but if you’re going for the sheer cool factor, the thing is going to be big, heavy, loud and look like a lot of firepower.
According to an entry in IMDB:
There are, of course, licensed machinegun manufacturers and dealers. Licensing for either of these is not cheap and subjects the company to pretty close ATFE scrutiny. It isn’t something one would typically do just to own a machinegun.