[DontBurnMyFlag]

Ive been wondering, why and when did the Mac-10/11 become such a gangsta firearm? I mean, they were made for the military back in the day, and I guess the Mp5 came along to ruin the fun. However, did large stockpiles go missing, did agencies sell them off, or were they just put in a warehouse somewhere and stolen? Im just curious and have no real answer to my question.

[benEzra]

I have actually never seen any credible reports of gang members using MAC-10's. I suspect that any U.S. gang member with such a firearm would represent a statistical abberation rather than a trend.

[1 old 0311]

The original SEMI AUTO's fired from a open bolt. This is very easy to modify into a full auto.


Kevin

[Firehand]

Same here. Gang bangers using such are a rarity, so much so as to be unheard of. Face it, if the bangers were actually using subguns as a common thing, the weenie media would have it on every broadcast at the top of their lungs

[whm1974]

You have been watching too many movies and/or not taking taking your grain of salt.

Gangbangers mostly use handguns and sometimes sawed off shotguns.

-Bill

[Keith Wheeler]

I believe a cop and/or fed was shot by a fellow with a semi M11 once, but I think the only place the "ganstas" have MACs is Miami Vice. Honestly, I think that's where the public image of drug dealers with subguns started.

By the way, the MAC was not "designed for the military". They attempted to sell it to the military, but it is a piece of s%#t. Fun gun, and can be made to be robust, but from the factory, compared to a quality subgun like an Uzi, MP5, or ancient Thompson, junk. (This coming from someone who owns one!)

[DontBurnMyFlag]

i disagree slightly. I have been offered mac-11's before. However, I do not doubt the fact that somebody has modified them into full-auto. Depending on the gang, a variety of firearms can be used. While the .25 auto is seen most often, dont assume that these damn thugs arent packing glocks and mossbergs. Ive seen it and have been offered them. It sucks living so close to a terrible neighborhood, I try to avoid all the elements of scum, however when I was in high school, it was hard when you are sitting next to them. I have been offered, AK-47 clones, glocks, mac11's, ruger pistols and a nickel plated beretta m92.

I know I should take my grain of salt as well.

[Standing Wolf]

The gangsters don't have them because all the terrorists snapped them up at gun shows.

[444]

I have run shooting calls involving bangers where I am 99.9% certain that the weapon used was a submachine gun. More than once. When the people being shot at tell you they were being shot at with machine guns and there are 50+ brass lying on the scene, odds are, they are telling the truth: but, I wasn't there when the actual shooting was taking place. I haven't seen that in awhile, but back when I was working those neighborhoods the generic term for a machine gun was an UZI.
I have also been offered full auto macs by people loosely associated to gangs, again, years ago. I used to date a girl who lived with her family in the heart of the "bad part of town". Her brothers wern't actually gangsters but were friends with them (lived in the neighborhood) and danced on the edges of that whole scene: they offered me stuff like that a few times.

Machine guns in the hands of criminals isn't nearly as common as the media would like you to believe, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. On the other hand, I have only run a couple calls in my career where someone was shot with a shotgun and I don't remember any of them being gang related. I have seen a lot more people shot with 7.62x39 weapons than shotguns.

One interesting note, I don't recall anyone ever actually being hit with a reported "machine gun" in my own personal experience. I have seen (as I said above) scenes where there was a hell of a lot of brass on the sidewalk and no one hit.

[justsurvivingincalifornia]

The reason for so many of them in the hand of gangsters is they used to be low price (around 300$) before 2000 here in CAL, their mean looks and high cap mags. There are far better choices in handguns at slight higher cost.

Many times no weapon is found at a crime location only a pile of brass which make gun ID hard.

Gangsters useage tended to be spray and pray useage.

Of course with a little training you should be able to hit a target with 2 or 3 rounds at close range. Most of the gangsters have no training and because some of the youngest one are the one doing the shooting they can't hit anything.

[jefnvk]

It would be foolish to believe that with all the small arms around the world the gov'ts, NOT private individuals, lost/sold/trafficked/whatever-other-criminal-things-they-did, that many haven't made their way to America.

Of course, it is also not wise to just believe a witness that said there was a SMG used. To many people, any semi is a machine gun.

[bogie]

Heh... I know a (former) 'banger... Way old school... Still has a very nice leather 8-ball jacket, and it still fits...

He's still got an unregistered Uzi... Says that when he was a kid, he and his buddies fired it once, dumped the mag into a dumpster, to see if it worked. It did.

He'd like to register it, etc., and is hoping for an amnesty. In the mean time, it stays disassembled in different places.

[Third_Rail]

They're pathetically easy to make - a good machinist could make forms that would allow unskilled workers to produce two or three AN HOUR - EACH WORKER.

All that the machinist would have to do is make the harder parts - the bolt, etc. The forming of magazines and the receiver is the unskilled part once the forms for it are made.