I don’t lust after a machine gun. My guns all serve some useful purpose. As I can’t envision a scenario where I’d need suppressive fire, I don’t see any advantage to owning a fully-automatic pistol, shotgun, or rifle. That said, I reckon the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms means what it says. All arms. Any arms. And TFB is right: a “giggle switch” enabled firearm is fun! If you’re like me, I highly recommend you kick out your machine gun jam at Knob Creek, the Texas Firearms Festival’s Full Auto Friday or wherever you can. If you own one, please share. Do it for the children!

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61 COMMENTS

  1. Hey – what about 105mm howitzers? Forty MM anti-aircraft guns? As Bugs Bunny would say: “What a maroon”.

    I reload for eleven calibers and have many firearms. So don’t tell me that I am anti-gun. I am against foolishness. You want to give the anti-gunners something to bitch about and support their claims? Tell the average American that you want to arm everyone with a machine gun. You think you have anti-gun hysteria now ?

    • Most of the antis think what we own is full auto anyway. I can’t tell you how many noobs have seen one of my AR’s and asked if it was full auto. Might as well repeal Hughe’s and open up the registry.

      And yes, what you stated was very Fudd-ish and anti 2A.

      • Everything is an automatic weapon………

        I saw the beginning of the “DR Oz show” Yesterday 2/17. He had Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold’s mother Sue on the show. In his Opening of the show stated ( after the Prom picture was shown) 3 days later they used explosives and “AUTOMATIC” weapons……………..

        Nothing like spewing False information freely and authoritatively.
        If I recall, I don’t even think there was any brand of AR 15 carried that day.

    • An argument can be made that “arms” in that context does not include crew-served weapons, weapons that cannot accurately target a single target (e.g. bombs, mines, grenades, howitzers), etc. “Arms” meaning something an individual can use, carry by him/herself, and target a single enemy. Sword, bow & arrow, staff, spear, firearm, etc.

      That said, had my safe always contained nuclear warheads and howitzers and machine guns and everything else under the sun, I still wouldn’t have hurt another soul with those things.

      • “had my safe always contained nuclear warheads”

        LOL its hard enough to find somewhere with enough space to shoot something like a 338LM or 50BMG without getting bored.

        • A nuke would be cool, but the stinkin’ paperwork and certified storage locker costs are *insane*…

          (Certified storage locker being a US military base with a nuclear weapons bunker)

          🙂

      • Jeremy S.,

        I have heard people proffer the argument that the Second Amendment may not include crew-served weapons. I have trouble with that argument for two reasons:
        (1) People owned personal cannons at the onset of and immediately following the Revolutionary War.
        (2) People owned personal warships with cannons at the onset of and immediately following the Revolutionary War.

        Cannons and warships are definitely crew-served “arms” or “weapons”. More importantly, crew-served arms/weapons are a virtual necessity to fend off a well-funded attacking force, whether that force is loyal to a multi-billionaire, the President of the United States, or the leader of a foreign nation.

        Finally, look at it this way. If a U.S. President had treasonous ambitions, would he/she not be several orders of magnitude more reluctant to impose tyranny on the people if the people had crew-served arms/weapons? After all, a primary goal of the Second Amendment is to keep us a free people … free from tyranny.

    • If somebody has the financial means to own & operate a 105 gun then I’d have no compunction against living in their neighborhood. Tyrants and occupiers hate him, learn how he destroys airfields with this 1 weird trick

    • F*** that.

      The 2nd Amendment doesn’t specify what type of arms.

      I want what soldiers use. That’s what the founders intended.

    • I could care less about what some anti gun crybaby likes or dislikes. The constitution protects my right to own full auto weapons and right now the government is infringing that right.
      I don’t have a list of words I find offensive and the ability to tell someone they can’t say those words. My tax dollars are handed out to sick individuals to produce obscene works of art and if I tried to ban said art from public view I would be shouted down by a bunch of liberal anti gun scumbags and villified in the press. So screw their feelings.

    • Do you live with the illusion that they would not be screaming at the top of their lungs regardless what we do?
      Why cater to them? Your mere existence offends them.

      There should be a 240B in my safe right now, sitting right next to the chicago typewriter. Maybe a frag or 3 for good measure 🙂

      • TaylorTex hit the proverbial nail on the head: it doesn’t matter what we say or do because our mere existence offends gun-grabbers.

    • Antis can’t be appeased, they’re always pissed about something. When they had the AWB they started whining about pocket guns. If they’d have gotten those banned as well, next it would be pump shotguns or something, look at the UK and Australia. To give up on principle to appease them or the fence sitters is a losing tactic, weakens the core position for the sake of a few months peace at best. If you really don’t believe the “arms” should include full auto, so be it, but I call that fuddism.

    • This type of comment is worse than when a gun grabber just straight up posts on here how they want your guns.

  2. It’s the only reason I’d ever consider actually owning a MAC- 10 or 11 or whatever it is can be had in select fire flavor for around $6,000. And mainly because of the various conversion uppers that are available. The $6k thing could conceivably happen one day, but feeding a full-auto gun ain’t cheap. The .22 LR conversions for the MAC would be handy, and there are even .223 and other uppers. Lots of ratta tat tat options in one purchase. Obviously, yeah, I’d MUCH rather own a select-fire AR lower, but now you’re into $25,000+ and that ain’t gonna happen.

    • Had a Mac 10 with a 22lr Lage upper. Tons of fun, for a little while. I’m saving up for a Ruger ACC now. Unfortunately, they’ve doubled in price.

  3. Nope. Don’t need or want one. Did my fair share of shooting FA when my rich uncle was paying the bill. Since then on the rare occasion when the urge hits I’ve found rental ranges to be enough.

    As I read 2a bearing arms is not to be infringed and is not based on need. Now if I was king of the world(Seriously, I’m not. So don’t get the vapors.) I would draw the line at crew served weapons with explosive ammo. Folks in the burbs don’t need stockpiles of 105mm ammo or RPGs.

    But, as I’ve said, 2a doesn’t allow infringement of any kind. Kind of a double edged amendment.

    • Are you kidding? I could make a fortune with an artillery piece in suburbia. Have those pool and home foundations dug in no time flat. Just make sure the coordinates are VERY accurate.

  4. Owning a full auto isn’t a difficult process. Coughing up $25K+ for a 30 year old M16 is the hard part.

    If you want to make yourself sick just do a YouTube search on the Hughes amendment vote. Clearly rigged and they didn’t have the votes….but somehow magically it passed and poof, the registry was closed for new machine guns. Let that be a lesson to all of us that compromise with the antis is never an option. We will never see any new MG’s available for civilian transfer again. Once you give away your rights, you rarely get them back.

    • “Owning a full auto isn’t a difficult process. Coughing up $25K+ for a 30 year old M16 is the hard part.”

      Spend the money on a registered Drop-In Auto Sear (DIAS) and replace the host rifle when it wears out…

      • I haven’t actually looked up the current price of a RDIAS, but the last I looked I think they were going for 15-20k that was about 5 years ago, either way out of my price range.

  5. I have family friend who owns a few machine guns. Getting invited to shoot those once every couple of years has been more than enough for me.

    If I had the money? Yeah, I’d probably try and get a registered lower, and maybe something with some historical significance like a Thompson, or maybe something belt fed. That’s a way off still.

  6. It’s the rtba, not cannons or is it? What’s ironic is its legal to own most cannon / mortars from the time the 2a was written, just not some modern 1 man arms, sbr sbs, full auto, aow ect. So if the 2nd didn’t rule out owning cannons or mortars from that time which were crew served, then modern versions should be legal to own, In my ignorant interpretation of the bor….

    • Since you brought that up. If I won the lottery I would love to build a 1700s era warship filled with cannons. Then sail it around the country. I am sure state governments everywhere would be thrilled!

      • I doubt Colorado would be all that concerned, lacking coastlines and not having a lot of navigable rivers, either.

    • I helped staff a tank range to provided training to a civilian crew for an M1 MBT recently purchased by a good friend of Reagan and Cap Weinberger in the late 80’s. So if you have the wasta (and bucks) crew served weapons can be yours.

  7. Do I NEED one? Not really. Can I think of a situation where one would be damn useful? Hell yeah. Think Ferguson. A crew served M2 peeking out of the top floor of your house is a hell of q riot deterrent. Just ask any Marine on a security detail at the US Embassy to Liberia or any other Central African hellhole where “election” is shorthand for another round of civil war. There’s a reason why those embassies have a two block radius of peace around them.

  8. I am not now, and have never been, a tactical kind of guy. Just not my thing. Sure, I own, shoot, and enjoy an AR and an AK and a couple of SKSs, but I never even attempt to convince myself there is anything about me that rhymes with, looks like, or even vaguely resembles an Operator.

    But damn, I do lust for a true, original BAR. Oh man, but it is a powerful attraction. I Mark it up to shows and films about WWII as I grew up in the 60s and 70s.

    Browning Automatic Rifle. Makes my spine shiver.

  9. I’m sick of the ‘everything I own has a purpose’ and ‘it’s for my family’ nonsense, I’ll be the first to admit, I own a bunch of stuff because I think it’s cool/interesting, or because I thought it would be fun to build.

    many people who aren’t even anti gun think that ars are full auto, I have fired full auto, it was fun if I could own one in ca I would because they are fun

    I am down with the right to keep and bare, but I will admit that there is fun to be had

  10. Only about 186,000 legally transferable machine guns available in this country. Try sharing that amongst 20+ million shooters…. *sigh*

  11. If I could afford the weapon, I probably couldn’t afford the ammo. But I got to use a M-16 in the army, and don’t have a real desire to ever use one again. But if you can afford one, you should be able to get one. Same applies to cannon, tanks, fighter aircraft and anything else you would like. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind a P-38, 4 50’s and a 20 mm. That would be fun, and I could maybe be able to fly and fire it every year or three.

    • I know where you can find a couple in restorable condition. Apparently one or two B17E’s, as well. Ya just gotta get through a lot of glacier.

  12. Suppressive fire desire. No thanks. After humping both iron and feedstock then cleaning…that book is closed.

    • True, but I still wouldn’t mind the M2 I rode behind sitting in the corner of my living-room. Or maybe a vintage MG-42. But they woud be there for nostalgia and eye candy, there’s no way I could justify feeding them on the regular to my better-half.

  13. Owning a machine gun is like owning a huge Mastiff — feeding it costs a fortune.

    But I’d still love to own an all-original M16A2 or reproduction thereof.

  14. If the Hughes amendment went away, I would be building a Yugo MG42 clone from the kits that are currently being sold.

  16. How about you credit the source of that video (Alex C from The Firearm Blog made the video)? I’ve read of this site’s at time blatant plagiarism in the past, but kept reading the articles and didn’t see the big deal… Not sure where this ranks as far as that concerns, but it seems pretty shady to me. Not a SINGLE mention of the source in the article’s text. Maybe what I’ve read is true after all (it’s too late to cite that article tonight- if this hasn’t been deleted by tomorrow I’ll post the appropriate link).

  17. I hate the “I don’t need” idea when it comes to firearms. Maybe I don’t personally need a machine gun or any gun at all for that matter since the only thing I use them for is a fun day at the range (I’m not counting carrying as using). It’s not about what I want either. It’s about the idea that we need for governments (ours and others) to know at least some of us have them. It’s about a last line of defense should we ever need it. We may not need one “behind every blade of grass” but we do need to at least work on getting Hughes repealed and the registry open.

  18. I should have done it 20 years ago when rattle guns were relatively cheap. Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot is a great place to go and get your full auto fix. I havent been in a while but I assume they still have the rental range on that weekend(s). I dont know how many times I’ve heard someone say “no one needs a machine gun.” Grinds my gears when other people and the gubment tell me what I need or can’t have. I just want it that much more.

  19. I’ve got all the licenses and as a manufacturer I can make and shoot whatever I want. We’ve got MP5s, full auto AKs, ARs, even an M2.
    My favorite, the supressed full auto .22lr SBR AR. It has an absolute blistering rate of fire. So much fun shooting steel with that thing. If I was going to own a personal full auto gun, that would be it. Just for the giggles.

  20. When I was 17 the military trained me how t on use a full auto m16. Now they tell us we can’t be trusted because we aren’t working for them at the moment?

  21. I feel like a full auto gun is not too different from a shotgun in function and use. Except you get a more even recoil impulse, so a mp5-like gun is shotgunny, but with less recoil, so more accuracy.

    It makes me laugh when people start throwing hissy fits about “GUNS SPRAYING BULLETS” since that is quite literally what a shotgun does. Even a single shot.

  22. As I can’t envision a scenario where I’d need suppressive fire, I don’t see any advantage to owning a fully-automatic pistol, shotgun, or rifle.

    I can. If a crew of attackers is spread out in front of you, advancing, and firing at you … full-auto is your best bet. (See the surveillance video of the man defending himself with an AR-15 behind the counter of his gun store after three men crashed their vehicle through the front windows and opened fire on him.)

    Full auto could also be important if you are under fire at relatively close ranges (say 50 yards and in) and you cannot take a relatively long time to place carefully aimed shots: full auto means you can pop up and use “point shooting” to send a four to six round burst at an attacker. While the odds of putting shots on target using point shooting are lower than aimed shooting, your odds obviously increase if you can get off more than one shot.

    And before anyone poo-poos this last example, I can tell you that I discovered the utility of this tactic first hand with full-auto air-soft (plastic BB) rifles in 20 yard engagements without much more than my hand extending beyond cover. (I had the welts on my knuckles to prove that it is an effective tactic.)

    So, yes, I would definitely like the option to have full-auto rifles and sub-machine guns, regardless of another person’s assessment of how often someone would “need” it.

    • “I discovered the utility of this tactic first hand with full-auto air-soft (plastic BB) rifles in 20 yard engagements without much more than my hand extending beyond cover.”

      Um, I guess there is not much more to say.

  23. Good idea to have an entire day devoted to full auto. We got disappointed last TFF when the RSO’s pulled the plug. I had my nephew from Dallas there. He was next in line when the decision was made to suspend full auto firing. And we had gotten VIP passes too. Double burn. However, Dan did tell me via comments section he would make it good for my nephew next TFF. Very much appreciated. We (me, my brother, and my two sons) will do VIP again. Worth every penny!

  24. One of the major points many people miss with full auto weapons is night combat – when it is impossible or difficult to see the enemy. All you may have for targeting is muzzle flash. The appropriate response is to throw a 2 to 3 round burst where you believe the enemy to be. Much easier to do with full auto than semi auto.

    I was trained in this by US Army back in 76. Quite effective for night and low-light combat. If I had to enter combat, give me selective full auto. It has its uses. One just needs to know when and how.

  25. Seems like you used to be able to get “dealer samples” that were full auto but could only be owned by a class 3 dealer. I remember my old boss having an uzi with folding stock and supressor that was about $6000.00??? I don’t remember all the details, but it was fun to shoot.

  26. Select-fire may or may not have a use for your average Joe, but I believe it is up to the individual to decide, not the government.

  28. It’ll be irrelevant in a few months, but you might wanna make a note that 41F does not go into effect until July 2, 2016 (or soon after). You still need the CLEO sign-off at this time.

  29. He forgot “Item 10”

    Make sure you can even own one in your state. In California it is impossible. Period. The End.

    I’d guess there are a few other states where that applies.

  30. I use firearms for three purposes:

    1. Fun (plinking and target shooting).
    2. Hunting.
    3. Personal, and family defense.

    None of these applications call for the use of automatic firearms. And automatics burn lot of moey per second without accomplishing a lot, IMHO.

    I have used full-auto Uzi carbines, and a Smith M-76 (both 9mm).They’re cool, but don’t have a good reason to own one.

    If you want to go into our rights that’s a whole nother kettle of fish: I don’t like being told what I can’t do, and I don’;t respect authorithy. Therein lies the dilemma.

    Charlie

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