Fast reaching? I’m pretty sure we’ve been there for some time now. Hell, the entire purpose of the National Firearms Act was to price the average shooter out of machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles/shotguns.
In the days before FOPA 86 went info effect manufacturers went into overtime mass producing things like sears and submitted bulk registration and serial numbers. In many cases those serial numbers were approved but the item in question was never manufactured.
These are “paper machine guns.” They exist on paper but the sear, receiver or other registered item was never actually made. It was something that would be hard to prove when we are talking about things like stamped sears.
But a few guys got nailed selling approved “paper machine guns” at a few “shooting events” in the early 90s. In this case no actual machine gun, sear or receiver even existed and they still were successfully prosecuted.
Well first not everybody shows you their damaged item that they may be thinking about refabricating.
But I have personally seen several lightning links that were broken beyond repair. I’ve seen a few (all of them Hard Times Armory) HK sears that were cracked or broken and one that had been welded to fix it.
Had a large internet MG dealer transfer a HK sear with a stress crack in it to one of my customers.
After FOPA passed ATF visited MFGs especially ones who submitted lots of F2s in the waning days and verified the MGs existed, those that did not were removed from the rolls.
I am not sure what [got nailed selling approved “paper machine guns”] means, but anyone who bought a MG that did not exist deserved to get burned.
That’s part of my point… how do you wear out a MAC-type or an Uzi?
They can be repaired forever… and now that they have gone up so much in price, it’s a guarantee they will be.
That’s the opposite of my point- Lightning Links are easy to duplicate. So are all the open bolt subguns. Most AK-types already have the target stamped in the side for the third axis pin.
…that and you can’t jail 20 million illegals.
Can you jail 8.25 million people? That’s only 15% of gun owners (a conservative estimate of how many would convert, IMO).
Well that’s pretty stupid.
…all because homeboy couldn’t trouble himself to electropencil the SN on a MAC flat the night before the sale and say, “Here it is!”
I’m still waiting for mass-produced flying cars that were promised 50yrs ago. I doubt laser guns will be here in the next 50yrs, and most of us won’t be either.
Well for your sake, you are always free to move to a free state. I never understood how some people have lived in such restrictive places (yes I have family in NJ).
I doubt anyone in 1812 would have believed you if you’d said that wars would be fought with repeating firearms fifty years later.
I doubt anyone in 1862 would have believed you if you’d said that heavier-than-air flight would be achieved in fifty years.
I doubt that anyone in 1912 - outside the scientific community - would even understand the importance of splitting the atom, the development of jet-propelled aircraft capable of breaking the speed of sound in level flight and firing guided weapons. Or that the German Kaiserreich would be divided and occupied by the British Empire, the French Republic, and the US in alliance with a communist Russian regime (while the Ottomon-Turkish- and Austro-Hungarian Empires would be broken up in just a few years). Or that the American backwater (and Russia under bomb throwing anarchists) would go from being regional powers to global superpowers.
Hell, in 1962, people thought it would be nearly 200 years before we could carry handheld communication devices that would allow us to contact people on the other side of the planet.
So in 50 years, we may not get the technological and political developments we’re expecting, but we wouldn’t likely recognize the world of 50 years from now, with some changes that we can’t even imagine today.
In defense, the speed of technological advancement in the 1800’s vs today is vastly different.
For me, what’s more important than having laser guns is repealing NFA laws; and more important than flying cars are green vehicles. But I digress.
Machine guns and parts will most likely still be around 50yrs from now (speculation of course), barring any new laws that may ban them in the coming years.
How many more years before early adopters will have selective laser sintering machines in their homes?
The DEFCAD stuff is not-so-appealing because it’s not durable, but what if you could turn out a full set of durable metal parts, put them together, and have an SMG?
Shoot it in the backyard when no one’s looking, retain the file on some hidden flash disk and then grind the gun back into reusable media.
I can think of a few designs that would be simple to clone right off the top of my head, but probably there would be new designs with superior ergos pretty quickly given the capapbilities of this technology.
Anyone ever been in a Harbor Freight or Northern Tool & Equipment store? Lathes, drill presses, 20 ton shop presses, oh my!
One can go to their local big box home improvement warehouse retail store and acquire everything they would need to create something along the lines of a Sten. The Brits were stamping these out for £2 ($10 US) during the war. With an annual inflation of 3.73% that works out to about $134.94 today.
