2003 minus 22 years old equals 1980 or 1981.
You may have been born before 1986, but most five year olds aren't into the mechanics of automatic weapons...
I was born in 1970, and I didn't know much about them in 1986 either...
I myself have always wondered about Class III weapons. I saw an acquaintance (not a friend) "modify" the firing sear on a Ruger 10/22 when I was about 19 years old. He filed here and did some other stuff there (I must confess to not really paying attention; he just looked like he was destroying a gun to me), and went to the woods behind his house try this bad-boy out.
Well, he darned near killed himself. The extractor wasn't up to the speed, and it fed a fresh round before the fired brass could be ejected. And, like I said, he darned near killed himself. And he DID destroy a perfectly good rimfire rifle. That was the first, and last time I ever saw, or allowed myself to be around, such uninformed idiocy (until I went into teaching
).
Now, I have since fired an M-16, a Thompson sub-machine gun, an Uzi (full-size), and an M-60. And I'll admit, they were all cool. But I was not particularly accurate with any of them, and the amount of money spent on a few magazines/belts/drums could have kept me shooting for several minutes, not a few seconds. I have reached a point in my life where I'd rather be accurate than lucky.
Just the same, they were cool (especially the M-60!).