Court Ruling on Machinegun Possession

Of the entire debate, what really matters is the open transport of firearms among the general public, exposing that public to potential danger. The only rationale for openly bearing firearms in public is self-defense, which by definition becomes far less necessary if they cannot be carried, and must be securely stored in transport. You got your freedom, you protect your home, blow stuff up at the range, go hunting. I can see the appeal.

I do not see any appeal to weapons being transported or carried while prone to rapid operation. I believe the rationale for that is armed rebellion, but that does not require law to bless it, by its very nature. Sure, harder for rebels to get about, especially loners. That's what should be the case.
 
Hercules56 said:
There is no civil right to specifically own a machine gun.
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The more specific you get the less it's a right and the more it's a privilege.

Also, what's your source for what the specific civil rights are?

Also, is there no civil right to defend yourself and your property with any and all available weapons?
 
Stacyhs said:
Some people have very strange priorities. Owning a machine gun is one of the strangest.
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That's not strange, it's an easy one to figure out. It's a toy that goes pew pew pew really fast and ruins things loosely in front of it. That's some good times.

Otherwise yeah, pretty ******* useless. Unless you want to kill.a lot of people and are a really bad shot.
 
Shhhh. be very, very quiet, I'm hunting wabbits (in best Elmer Fudd voice)

iu
 
Something interesting about the judge's decision in the OP is that... it doesn't really mean anything. This wasn't a precedent setter. He said that the government failed to meet it's burden in this particular case, and in fact barely tried. In any other case, the state might well show up for work remembering to shave and stuff and it's a whole new ball game.
 
angrysoba said:
Finally, the rights of machine gun owners are being accepted! This is brilliant news for would-be school shooters to live out their American dream. All 2nd Amendment lovers should feel a surge of pride gush from their stomachs over this.
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Yup. The consequences of this decision will be measured in human deaths... a spree shooter will now be able to kill hundreds of people at a time instead of just dozens!
 
A question for gun enthusiasts: I understand that it's not hard to learn how to service a handgun or rifle to make sure it works when you need it.
What about an actual machine gun?
How easy is it to mess that up, and what are the consequences of trying to use a badly maintained one?
 
Ranb said:
As far as I know semi-auto rifles and handguns of any type are the overwhelmingly preferred style of weapons of the mass shooter.
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I imagine cost and access is a reason. I mean, that's also why I think militaries use machine guns. it would seem there's some sort of killing efficiency. otherwise, why do we spend so much money on these arms, when we could just get some 22 rifles.
 
Thermal said:
Something interesting about the judge's decision in the OP is that... it doesn't really mean anything. This wasn't a precedent setter. He said that the government failed to meet it's burden in this particular case, and in fact barely tried. In any other case, the state might well show up for work remembering to shave and stuff and it's a whole new ball game.
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Exactly. The case is not a precedent setter. There are a lot of "mights" and "maybes" in the OP.
 
Thermal said:
Something interesting about the judge's decision in the OP is that... it doesn't really mean anything. This wasn't a precedent setter. He said that the government failed to meet it's burden in this particular case, and in fact barely tried. In any other case, the state might well show up for work remembering to shave and stuff and it's a whole new ball game.
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Orphia Nay said:
Exactly. The case is not a precedent setter. There are a lot of "mights" and "maybes" in the OP.
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The reason that the case is not a "precedent setter" is simple. As it was a case in federal district, the decision is binding only on the parties to the case.
 
Segnosaur said:
Are there any competitions that involve machine guns?
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I could definitely design one.

Firing machine guns is fun. I had the privilege of doing so at a Territorial Army function 30 years ago and it's ******* cool. Some friends of mine own a factory that built a working Gatling gun replica for a movie around the same time. I didn't get to fire that one, but I did see it in action.

I'm thinking a limited number of shots and a large number of targets. Most targets shot wins.

The Great Zaganza said:
A question for gun enthusiasts: I understand that it's not hard to learn how to service a handgun or rifle to make sure it works when you need it.
What about an actual machine gun?
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More moving parts = more things can go wrong and more maintenance needed. If I had one I'd get it serviced professionally, which I imagine warranties would require anyway.

The Great Zaganza said:
... and what are the consequences of trying to use a badly maintained one?
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Injury or death, although I suspect by far the most likely problem would be jam, which is mostly harmless.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
A question for gun enthusiasts: I understand that it's not hard to learn how to service a handgun or rifle to make sure it works when you need it.
What about an actual machine gun?
How easy is it to mess that up, and what are the consequences of trying to use a badly maintained one?
Click to expand...
Might not be relevant but my understanding (not an expert don't @ me) is that the Australian designed and manufactured Owen gun was one of the most reliable submachine guns of its time. Those things could be drenched in muddy water or sand, and routinely were, and could come out firing.

I guess my point is that a gun capable of firing 700 rounds/min is not necessarily less reliable because of that capability.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
A question for gun enthusiasts: I understand that it's not hard to learn how to service a handgun or rifle to make sure it works when you need it.
What about an actual machine gun?
How easy is it to mess that up, and what are the consequences of trying to use a badly maintained one?
Click to expand...
It's just a difference in the seat. there's no trigger disconnect in a fully automatic weapon. A select fire weapon has a selective disconnect on the trigger.
An open bolt, recoil operated machine gun is probably the simplest mechanism.For example a Sten has a single piece bolt, a recoil spring and 5 components in the trigger group. If you take the select fire option out it has 3 components in the trigger. It doesn't even need a firing pin, a raised point on the bolt face acts as the firing pin. There isn't even a separate extractor on the bolt.

Prototype Sten, the MK1
First in a series on the development of the Sten from Forgotten Weapons.
The MK2 was even more simple

 
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The Great Zaganza said:
A question for gun enthusiasts: I understand that it's not hard to learn how to service a handgun or rifle to make sure it works when you need it.
What about an actual machine gun?
How easy is it to mess that up, and what are the consequences of trying to use a badly maintained one?
Click to expand...

Not a gun enthusiast myself, but I've been in the army, and they kinda were adamant that we use guns and learned to maintain them. It's not that hard. With a bit of practice you could even do it blindfolded.

Any army always wanted to be able to use most of the population, not just mechanical geniuses. So ease of maintenance is a consideration for any gun designers that wanted to be able to sell their wares.

Reliability is also a big point.

As for what can go wrong, tbh the only issue that comes to mind that an automatic weapon can have, and the semi-auto version for the civilian market won't have, is a cook-off. As in, after you fired hundreds of rounds, the barrel may be hot enough so that the round fires as soon as it's pushed into the hot chamber. This is obviously more of a problem for closed bolt weapons, because they always insert a new round after you fire one, whereas for open bolt ones (which includes most SMGs) the chamber is empty until you actually press the trigger. And it's not as much a matter of maintenance as just a dumb user problem.

Anyway, what this can do in an assault rifle or actual machine gun is that it will fire another round or two after some random time without you pulling the trigger. In fact, it can do it even if the safety is on.

You also must understand though that the barrel must get very hot for that to be a problem. It won't just happen because you let your gun out in the sun. You have to empty several magazines in a row on full auto before you get anywhere near the risk of that happening. Or with actual machine guns with heavy replaceable barrels, you may literally need to fire thousands of rounds before you're anywhere near that risk.

And honestly, if you've gotten in a situation where you've shot that many rounds, regardless of if it's in self defense, hunting, or running amok, you have bigger problems than the rifle spontaneously going BANG one more time :p
 
TBH, the bigger problem I see is the inherent lesser accuracy when firing more than one shot at a time. Even with modern designs where the recoil goes straight into the butt-stock, if you shoot a 3 round burst it will inherently be a slightly wider grouping than if you shoot 3 times on semi-auto. And even less tight if you do a mag dump.

Believe it or not, for military use that's actually a feature, not a bug. Sorta. The idea isn't to put 3 rounds into the same guy for maximum damage. The idea is that when you shoot at a guy 300m away, you have 3 times the chances that one will hit him. And if one of the rounds that missed hits his squad mate instead, even better.

I'd be hard pressed to imagine many civilian situations where you have to defend yourself from 300m away and where a missed shot isn't a potential problem.
 
theprestige said:
The more specific you get the less it's a right and the more it's a privilege.

Also, what's your source for what the specific civil rights are?

Also, is there no civil right to defend yourself and your property with any and all available weapons?
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Machine guns should not be available to the general public.
 
The Atheist said:
More moving parts = more things can go wrong and more maintenance needed. If I had one I'd get it serviced professionally, which I imagine warranties would require anyway.
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Depends on the model, I would assume. As Andy pointed out, some, especially SMGs, can actually have LESS moving parts. He already pointed out the Sten, but the Uzi can also serve as an example, as it is also incredibly simple and reliable.

But on the other hand, you have abominations like the attempted AKS-74U based machine-pistol, that not only could use like 15 different cartridges -- about half of them without even changing anything else than the magazine -- but could also switch between short recoil and gas piston, as needed. I'm fairly certain that whoever designed that was playing Fallout 4 and their weapon upgrades, and went, "hold my vodka." :p
 
As I also mentioned, the main difference between full automatic and semi is the trigger interrupt can be switched out of the way on a full automatic. It only needs to be one part extra.
 
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