First, let me state that I'm extremely pro 2A, and I agree with the above 100%.
NOW, it actually pains me to pose this question... but I'm doing so in hopes of finding a good counter argument. When we hear "automatic weapons" being used in a crime we (as educated, legal gun owners) first think it's probably wrong; knowing how difficult NFA's are to obtain.
My question is: why is this? And isn't this what the anti's are looking to achieve with ALL firearms? If it can be somewhat successful for NFA's, why not almost anything else? If it's the expense, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to slap ridiculous taxes on all firearms for civilian use.
I'd like to think the restrictions on NFA weapons aren't the reason for their rarity... or maybe we're mistaken on how rarely they fall into the wrong hands?
First of all, stop believing the myth that machine guns are made of
unobtainium. The vast majority of criminal machine guns are either
stolen or homebrew variety. All it takes is a machinist with half a brain
to make any semiautomatic rifle a machine gun.
The reason there aren't real incidents with machine guns very often is
that it's a lot easier for joe criminal to get a non machine gun, and the
criminals that do the "conversions" apparently haven't found it profitable
enough to do on a regular basis. The other huge reason it's not
frequently done is the guys that sell guns illegally know, that federally
speaking, a regular Title I gun is legal, and a machinegun certainly
isn't, and carries an applicable huge federal prison sentence. (Keeping
in mind, that in like 40+ states, mere posession of a regular handgun or
a rifle in your home or car is not illegal!)
The thing I hate the most about the media- is that WRT so called
"assault" weapons, is that they fail to tell people that semiautomatic
rifles, or even illegal machine guns, are used in a VERY SMALL minority
of crimes. Compared to the amount of shootings via handguns, rifle
deaths are a drop in the bucket.
After all, is an AR with a sear in it -really- that much more powerful? It
might have a higher rate of fire, but in untrained hands the "effective"
rate of fire with a fully automatic weapon might actually be
worse. (eg, the ratio of shots fired to shots that actually hit
something. ) .
So not only is the "assault rifle/weapon" myth propogated a lot,
but theres also a lot of people pushing the myth that a machinegun is
somehow or another dramatically more dangerous than a regular rifle
is. (perfect example- the LA bank shootout involved FA weapons, and only a
few police were injured, and nobody was killed except for the perpetrators... and the
perps laid down well over 1000 rounds in the area during the confrontation!)
FWIW, real, true blue, NFA registered weapons are rarely used to
commit crimes. The reason being is that the individuals who jump through
all the flaming hoops to get a machinegun legally, 99.9% of the time, are NOT
criminals. Do I agree with the flaming hoops? No. It does explain why NFA
guns are almost never used in crime, however.
IMO the terminology the media uses sucks, but frankly the hoplophobes
that don't like machineguns are the same people that also want to
ban handguns. There might be some wishy-washies in the
middle, but I don't think thats the majority. The biggest problem we
face as gun owners is apathy about gun rights, which only has a little to
do with the media. Let's put it this way- if a person isn't a gun owner, or
isn't friends with one, then they likely care very little about the issue
regardless of their political persuasion. This allows the antis to get away
with banning stuff, simply because nobody opposes it. It isn't because
all of the people WANT the gun control, its just that they don't care
enough about the issue to say anything about it. I'll be the first person to
tell you, that a decade ago, I could have cared less one way or the other if
they had banned everything. I wasn't an anti, but at the time I had
looked at the laws and felt like we were already defeated. Then I realized
that one of my best friends had owned guns and my tune changed
entirely. Then I went to the range with him for the first time, and from
that point onward I was convinced that guns were worth having
around, and that salvaging whatever rights we had left was worth
fighting for. Having first person perspective changes everything,
IMO. The biggest challenge we face is that to most people, guns are a
relatively alien concept... think about that for a minute. How can we
get people to care about something they barely know, or are only exposed
to on TV?
edit: FWIW, the only reason NFA weapons are taxed is because the taxation bit was
used as a dirty trick to squeak the original NFA past the supreme court. It was politically
marketed as a "tax" as opposed to a "ban", so it could evade possible 2nd amendment
issues. Since the govt sold their case as "taxation" instead of outright prohibition they let it
slide.
-Mike