It’s only been 30 years and we’ve seen a lot of the single leg registered HK sears (actually a sear trip lever in most cases but that’s beside the point), lightning links and other “paper clip” quality registered devices break beyond repair.
Even quality stuff like Colt, FN and HK receivers have a finite life span. They were designed around ideas of mass production and never intended to have 50 year service lives. One day all the registered receiver HKs and registered AR lowers are going to give up the ghost. Registered tube guns, yeah sure there are a lot of them, but they also won’t last forever.
Some John Browning designs, especially those that don’t involve a water jacket might chug along for another century or so. And certainly those “white glove” examples that haven’t been fired for 20 years and won’t ever be fired again will have a long life expectancy, but for the prices they will command they might as well be “non transferable” and sitting in a museum.
Currently affordable (meaning the price of a decent car or less) transferable machine guns will have one of two fates. They will either be used and eventually fired past the point of no return or they will be treated as collectibles and the prices will increase beyond the means of your average person as the supply dwindles.
In the 1990s prices for a Colt M-16 were outrageous at $5,000 or more. What about in 50 years? What will be the legal ramifications when we arrive at the point where no “transferables” exist? Right now we live in a NFA created “never never land” where a person “technically” can own a machine gun even if they can’t actually afford it.
As far as the gummunt is concerned, the whole idea is to make sure that machine guns “die out” as an item in the hands of the public, even if it takes decades. This is one of the main reasons (other than expense) why I never delved into NFA items. You can end up with a $10,000 wall hanger for want of a small irreplaceable part.
“Swami predict” that 3D printing technology will eventually supercede any legal qualms certain owners of NFA items have about their investments becoming boat anchors.
Nothing is truly irreplaceable, except for serialized parts. When someone spends that kind of money as an investment, it’s no question to hire a machinist to keep it functioning. There are plenty of old pieces that have been rehabilitated. As for price, it’s a straightforward microeconomics model. Supply dwindles while demand increases. Not much to say. That was the plan. What else is there to say? Last machine gun owner, get the lights on the way out?
Not sure even the greatest machinist in the world could keep this sustainable forever.
Of course a talented machinist could probably produce and exact copy complete with serial number with nobody the wiser. Would be harder to do with something like a HK receiver.
Not really, the vast majority of the stuff on the registry is “mass produced” sears, links and tubes. Things like Ingram M-10s alone probably outnumber all the WWI era stuff combined.
$100 bills aren’t that easy to duplicate either, but serious consequences and not everyone has access to the necessary equipment.
Illegal immigration is viewed by far too many retards as a “humanitarian” issue, that is why the permissiveness exists. An equal number of people struggle with trying to decide if just “anybody” should be able to own a semi auto rifle or high capacity magazine.
Even if there was large scale civil disobedience, a huge number of those participants would be rounded up and convicted and would never be able to own a firearm again. Illegal immigrants are simply sent back to Mexico, when anything is actually done which is almost never, and really lose nothing.
Now if everyone decided to contact their rep and was willing to vote things like the sporter clause out of existence that would have a domino effect and undermine the MG ban (and most other regulations) found in the 1968 Gun Control Act, the other MG ban found in FOPA 1986 and the 1989 Import Ban.
With the registry open, a select fire M4 would cost about as much as an SBR. The “old white guy” collectibles like original Maxim’s, Thompsons, BARs, etc. would pretty much retain their value for the most part. Registered sear and registered receiver conversions would lose most of their value overnight.
In 50 years one or more of the following will have occurred:
922(o) and/or the NFA will have been repealed, either by court case or by passing a new bill.
Or the opposite: owning guns will be more much more difficult for the general public and people will care more about owning a gun, period, than a machine gun no one ever shoots.
The putative federal government will govern a smaller amount of land & population than it does today, so fewer people will care about what laws it enforces.
We’ll all be shooting laser blasters or rail guns or something and no one will care about gunpowder-actuated firearms shooting small metallic pellets and whether they shoot more than one pellet per trigger pull or not.
I get that, but honestly, how would anyone know? Other than blabbing about it on a public forum, lol. I have access to multiple HASS 4 and 5 axis CNC machines. I know SolidWorks and AutoCAD, have friends who know ProE very well. Grab a caliper, measure an existing full auto registered lower that had a failure, let’s say. Draw it up, machine it out of the correct aluminum and destroy the broken original. 30 years ago this was out of the realm of possibility for most people, today it’s really not that hard.
One day I hope to live in a free state where I can have NFA items. I doubt the NFA will be abolished by the time I leave this nazi shit hole, so I’ll have to pay up. For now, I can only dream of SBRs Supressors and full autos. Hell, I’ve never even held any of them in my hands lol.
Steyr, do you know of actual reports where a sear, LL, or similar conversion device was broken beyond repair? This scenario is why I went with a DLO registered HK frame/trigger box instead of a sear. Frankly, short of it being run over by a tank I don’t think there is a scenario where one could wear out a HK trigger box. Same with AR DIAS, well steel body DIAS. I went with factory Colts for my M16s, but I wish I had purchased a DIAS before they were at current stratospheric levels. I don’t think you could realistically wear out an UZI or mp5 beyond repair. Same goes for a 1919.
We are fast reaching the point where the desirable transferable MGs are totally priced out of the average shooter’s means. Frankly this could be the means to bring 922(o) to court. Sue for equal protect under the law because 922(o) has artificially raised prices above what is attainable by the common man.
I really want to see 922(o) repealed. We may see it happen one day, it just needs to be done smartly. And sequentially. We need to take a play from the gun banner’s playbook of death by a thousand cuts. Small incremental steps, all building up to the ultimate ability to repeal 922(o). We need to start with the sporting clause. I think with Heller as case law, the sporting clause could easily be challenged in court. A domestically produced AR15, SCAR, AUG, etc is legal but an imported version is not? And because thise domestically produced firearms are in common use, under Heller they are protected. So how then can identical imported rifles not be protected under the 2a?
