Okay, boys and girls, I'd like to take a few minutes here to rant about one of the most coveted niches in the gun world: the NFA shit. You know, all the stuff you want but don't think you'll ever get. Short barrels, silencers, light and heavy machine guns, centerfire rifles over .50-caliber, machine pistols (think Glock 18), and the original automatic predecessors to our current crop of civil rifles (AK-47s and M-16s, among them).
Some who are new to this whole gun thing may think that owning any of these is just a wet dream, that they're illegal for mere civilians to own. Well, in 40 states, that's wrong. If you're a gun law buff (e.g. me, several of you reading this), you know the '68 Act specified that if you had any full-auto pieces or whatever they listed that were made before May of that year, you had to register them with authorities and pay the government money to keep them in your hands. You also know that the '86 Act (why, Reagan, why?!?!) banned all NFA items manufactured after 1986 from civilian consumption, and all current pre-86 guns were registered to some entity and were labeled "transferable only" (basically, you're leasing them from somebody else). These guns are in some kind of limbo between ownership and non-ownership.
BUT- you can own these guns in 40 states. It's kind of easy and kind of hard: you pay the price of the gun, an extra amount of money for the special tax stamp from ATF, sign their Form 4, take said Form 4 to your chief law enforcement officer (police chief or county sheriff) and have them sign off on it, and state specific need, and assure ATF you're of sound mind with his written statement, then you submit your Form 4 along with two sets of fingerprints and two passport photos to ATF, wait 6 months for the background checks to clean you out, and then if you're given the green light, you get to mosey on down to your nearest Class 2 or Class 3 dealer and pick up your new, fully-automatic toy and live happily ever after. Oh yeah, good luck paying for the ammo. Have fun.
Now, the 1934 Act (thanks a lot Franklin, you jerkoff cripple) established our current firearm classification: Title I firearms (lever guns, bolt guns, pistols, revolvers, shotguns, semi-auto rifles) and Title II firearms (any automatic weapon, rifles with barrels shorter than 16 inches, shotguns with barrels shorter than 18 inches, overall length less than 26 inches, destructive devices, any other weapons [AOW]). The '68 Act also established FFLs and serial numbers on guns, banned mail-order guns; it was basically a word-for-word copy of the Weimar gun ban enacted in Nazi Germany (I wonder whose side we're on...) and also banned the importation of guns from other countries without a "legitimate sporting purpose" to be decided by ATF won what makes up a "legitimate sporting purpose". For instance, they could say hunting is no longer a "legitimate sporting purpose" and screw all the hunters in the USA by banning Franchi, Stoeger, Legacy Sports, Benelli, Drilling, Sauer, Sako, Howa, Tikka, and all those wonderful guns. Which would put hunters in the same boat as us who want SVDs and Romak-3s and Type 56s, UMPs, USCs, SPAS-12s and SPAS-15s, and fuckin' whatever I missed.
Prior to 1934, a 5-year-old could go to Ye Olde Home Depot and buy magazines and ammo for daddy's Thompson. That kid could have also bought a Gatling gun for $250. Now, if you want a Thompson, expect to shell out more than $75,000, wait one year, get inspected by every spook in the ATF, persuade your CLEO that you won't go bananas and walk into McDonald's on a Sunday morning and ruin everyone's McMuffin, and then when you finally get your new toy, egads! you don't have any ammo for it. And you can't shoot it at the local gun club because all they have is a trap range and 25-yard rimfire silhouettes and don't allow rapid-fire, and you can't shoot in that pit 25 miles from your town because it's government land. Dear God, what the fuck are you gonna do now? Guess I'll put the Thompson in a case and look at it every so often. Yeah. Whee. Great fun.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: laws only stop the law-abiding. Bad guys will get whatever the fuck they want, whenever the fuck they want, wherever the fuck they want, far away from the law. I don't have to pay an extra $200 for a band saw, but it sure can cut through a human neck like nothing else. I don't need to have a CLEO sign off on paperwork for a jackhammer, but I sure can bust up a driveway, building foundation, or car easily with one. I don't need to register my antifreeze, but if I pour it down someone's throat, they won't feel too good in a few days. I don't have to wait six months for a sledgehammer, but human bones sure break easy when you wallop them with one. But if it's a really fat fuck, the hammer may rebound and hit me, so I wear a hard hat and face shield. Also helps if there's a chance of spray.
Why should I have to jump through so many hoops just to own something as trivial as a machine gun? It's like an ATV or a drill press: a machine that serves a specific purpose. Suppose the CLEO won't sign off on the Form 4 because he doesn't trust you. I'm gonna tell him straight up, listen here, Chief. I'm laying down 60,000 bucks for this gun, an extra $200 to have it shipped here from Arizona, then I'm gonna wait for six months while ATF dissects my turds to find out how many bean burritos I've eaten or how many chicks I've fucked since then, and then, IF they don't think I'm a nutcase, I'll be able to take my prize home and feed it and comfort it and give it TLC and maybe I won't have to drive all the way to the damn sticks to shoot it every week. And you have the audacity to think that I, an honest law-abiding citizen, MAY pose a slight threat to your county just because I want this M-60? I'm not gonna be a stupid fuckup and ruin all that hard work and money to go bonkers and tear Downtown a new asshole with this new present to spend the rest of my life in the slammer wth some tweaker motherfucker and lose whatever right I still have? I think not.
Anyway. If I want to buy an MP5, I should be able to march into the Home Depot, lay down $700, get $6.23 in change, and walk out with the SMG in a case with 5 extra magazines, 1,000 rounds of ammo, and a 9mm Bore Snake. I should also be able to take a Glock 21, install a fire-rate selector, 7.5" barrel, and shoulder stock, and then have a .45ACP machine pistol without having to pay $300 every 5 years for some stupid license. If I wanted to buy a PPSh-41 with 3 drums, in pristine condition, no shitty cut-up receiver, I should be able to do so. If I wanted to buy five AKMs direct from Izhmash or five M95s direct from Zastava, I should be able to do that and not have any ugly importer's marks on them when they get here, to my front door, via UPS. If I wanted to buy the entire remaining stock of Sten and Sterling SMGs from the SAS, I should be able to do just that, over the phone. If I wanted to buy a couple of Steyr AUGs from the Aussies, I should be able to do that, too. If I wanted to buy a PSG-1 from a GSG-9 sniper in Berlin, then I should be able to do so. And I should be able to do all this cheap, and with little or no government resistance.
We're supposed to be a free country, so let's get free. Ditch the laws and focus on being a government that bows to us instead of us bowing to you. Peace.
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