Why didn't more folks by full auto when they were readily available?

[PTK]

I guess I might be strange, but I read the question more along the lines of pre-Hughes purchases, not pre-NFA. Pretty much the same answers apply, though - in 1986, $200 was still a load of money.

 

[Ingsoc75]

I think it might also be a generational difference.

For those of us who were raised in the 1980s and 1990s and not being old enough to even purchase a MG prior to May 1986 it's kind of a "forbidden fruit" type of thing.

Do full autos really serve a purpose? Not really, but it sure would be fun to own one just because you have the privilege to in many states.

Some day I would love to own one but for now bump firing my AK74 is the closest I will get.

 

[X-Rap]

I would love to have an MP5 and an M4 but that is about all I could afford to feed. If automatics ever become easily available at reasonable prices I hope suppressors do as well.

 

[RS14]

I suspect that it also had to do with the relative lack of light automatic weapons. In 1933, your choices were things like the M1918 BAR, or even heavier and more unwieldy belt-fed machine guns, or the Thompson, which was still both expensive and heavy. The Germans had a few good subguns, not that they would have been widely available in the US, and pretty much everything else came after the NFA, including all assault rifles.

Furthermore, the Thompson wouldn't have been all that well known as a military weapon. Other than some actions in Central and South America, subguns didn't see much military use until WWII. The average veteran had trained and fought with a bolt action rifle, and that probably shaped his views of what a military weapon should be like.

 

[7thCavScout]

Thought you all might enjoy this vintage ad from a Sears & Roebuck Catalog

[/IMG]

 

[Prince Yamato]

I love how he's actually killing people with it in the ad. Imagine if that ad was released today!

 

[TexasRifleman]

Take a Thompson. In 1934 they were $200, pre NFA.

That's about $3300 in today's dollars.

That's an expensive item, then and now.

Then, say in 1935 the price of the gun was $3300 plus another $3300 in taxes.

Now we are at $6600 in today's dollar for a 1935 Thompson. Steep entry fee back then.

As a result, unfortunately, the biggest buyers were criminals.

 

[mboylan]

You need to remember that ammo was really expensive until the early 90s. Most people could not afford to feed one. Some people bought one and sold it after they discovered they could not afford to feed one. Most people today cannot afford to feed one.

If you cannot afford a MAC at today's prices, you probably cannot afford to shoot one regularly.

Also the trust route was not available until the 90s. Most CLEOs would deny permission.

 

[Claude Clay]

so many good points--

adjusted cost; $6600 in '86 bought 8 or 10 other assorted pistols & rifles

bullet hose--just how i perceived them at that point in time. a couple hours at the press made enough ammo (600 plus rounds of various calibers) for 3 range sessions. the MG eats that in less than a half hour--if it runs.

id like to add--if it runs--the many people who i observed back than spent way more time consulting and tinkering than actually shooting. today they seem to run much, much better. though at each MG shoot out of the 30 odd that start, half do not finish cause of malfunctions. go figure...

the MG crowd, my observation based on the clubs local to me, are among the most sharing gunnies i know. many hand me the gun and a stick (or more) of their ammo. others i make ammo specific to their MG: happyness is a warm gun

 

[X-Rap]

I would love to have a big blow up of that page in the sears catalog to frame, if I opened one today and saw that add I'd be at the store in a heartbeat.
Someone skilled at graphics and such could do a modern version with crack dealers and gang bangers instead of cattle rustlers.

 

[CleverNickname]

Also the trust route was not available until the 90s.

"Not well-publicized" would be more accurate. The law hasn't changed since 1968, but the internet has done a lot to facilitate communications and make it easier to find out information that wasn't readily available before.

 

[IBEWBULL]

We can thank Ronnie Reagan for the present laws on class III.
http://www.mdwguns.com/NFA_Items.html
This snuck up on us and if we wrer aware of the door being closed I think things would be a lot different.
Why don't people buy more supressors today?
The same reasons apply to this as the class III and I am still cash poor and have no suppressed weapons.

 

[Ingsoc75]

I think the only way for 922(o) to get repealed is for some lawmaker to remove it as part of a larger bill. That's how Hughes and Rangel snuck it into FOPA.

 

[Sam1911]

We can thank Ronnie Reagan for the present laws on class III.
http://www.mdwguns.com/NFA_Items.html

Wow, that web site sure gets some stuff wrong. I'm not sure why folks would put such easily verified false statements in the first line of their commercial web page, but I guess it takes all kinds...

In 1986 Ronald Reagan signed the executive order that no military style firearms could be imported into the US, and that full automatic weapons produced from the day of signing this order could not be sold to civilians.

Yeah, that's all wrong. In 1986, Ronald Regan signed the Firearm Owner's Protection Act which included as a last-minute addition the "Hughes Amendment" which closed the registry. Reagan didn't author any of it and just signed what he was told (correctly) was a largely positive law that really did do a lot to help out gun owners. This was not an executive order -- at all -- but rather a bill that had worked its way through both houses of Congress and was passed. All Regan did was sign it -- with the blessing of the Republican party and the NRA.

Further, the restriction on imports of foreign-made military weapons goes back 18 years earlier to the Gun Control Act of 1968, when Reagan was still Governor of California.

 

[Zoogster]

Further, the restriction on imports of foreign-made military weapons goes back 18 years earlier to the Gun Control Act of 1968, when Reagan was still Governor of California.

Yeah he was in California busy signing the Mulford Act, banning open carry in California around that time (1967.)

 

[Sam1911]

Yeah he was in California busy signing the Mulford Act, banning open carry in California around that time (1967.)

Right, but that didn't have anything to do with full-auto weapons and this isn't a general "I hate Reagan" thread.

 

[788Ham]

While still remembering.......... back in '67, a buddy of mine and I would spend less than $10.00 apiece and go to the nearest sptg gds store, but a brick of .22's for $3.99, and several boxes of 12 ga. shot gun shells for $1.89 a box and go shooting all day long! We'd go about 35 miles north of town and shoot the Be'jesus outta every jackrabbit and P-dog that ran the dirt in front of us. Now, I've seen the same $10.00 might buy you "one" box of .22's, the fancy assed one's some folks like to brag about using for paper punching. The little Win. semi-auto I paid $49.00 for wouldn't get you much of a rifle now days at all, except maybe a worn-out one at a gun show. I haven't any need for a MG, the older days were a lot simpler too.

 

[Bruno2]

The $225.00 tax was to make it impossible for snybody except the exremely wealthy. There is no need to raise the tax now b/c the price of the guns are so far out of reach. Thanks Ronnie thanks alot.

 

[Sam1911]

Thanks Ronnie thanks alot.

Yup. Thanks Ronnie. Thanks for signing what the conservatives and gun-rights group told you to sign.

Thanks for signing a law that would...

1) Reform the ATF's abusive practices toward dealers
2) Clarify the definition of a "prohibited person"
3) Reopen interstate sales of long guns, getting rid of the "contiguous states" problem
4) Allow ammunition shipments through the U.S. Postal Service
5) Remove the requirement to keep records on ammunition sales
6) Codify the "Safe Passage" provision to permit travel between states where your guns are legal even through those areas where they aren't.

Soooo...

Does "Ronnie" deserve credit for these things? Does he deserve blame for the Hughes Amendment?

 

[jimmyraythomason]

Thanks Sam1911 for setting the record straight. I for one DO thank President Reagan for all he did for us! Now to the original question; in 1934-35 my grandfather had a wife and 7 kids to feed. The ONE box of .22 shorts or handful of #9 12ga shells they could get went to put food on the table. As an Alabama sharecropper,who OWED the landowner money after it was all said and done,he had no need for or ability to buy a "fun gun". I can remember when my dad bought dynamite at the hardware store. Why didn't everyone buy that when they could?

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

In those pre-Internet days before the Hughes Amendment capped the supply it may not have been well known that you could own them, or at least knew how to go about owning them.

Back in the mid-80s I thought it would be so cool to own those types of things, but my limited knowledge on the subject (along with picking the brains of the typical gun show "experts") lead me to believe you needed a "class 3 FFL license" just to own a title II firearm or device, so it got put into the "someday..." category. Of course the fact I was 10 didn't help. You'd have to mow a lot of lawns to come up with the price of the stamp, let alone the MG.

The closing of the NFA Registry is IMHO one of the most unconstitutional gun laws ever passed. It is just a wrongful act on several levels.

Want to hear the really disgusting part?
It didn't even pass.

Recorded vote for Hughes Amendment:
Ayes: 124
Noes: 298
Not Voting: 12

Source: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B769hyKWckIHOGU3OWQ2ODQtMjM1YS00Njg2LTg3MjEtOGJiNzFiNGJiZDgz&hl=en
They put it in the FOPA anyway.

 

[Sam1911]

In those pre-Internet days before the Hughes Amendment capped the supply it may not have been well known that you could own them

Very astute point!

There is a LOT of "common" knowledge that we take for granted now which was simply not easy to acquire even 10 or 15 years ago. Growing up I didn't know anyone who knew anything of owning a Title II firearm, or who knew anyone who did. I shot regularly and visited probably a dozen or so gun shops spread out over two states pretty often, but none of them were SOT 03s -- in fact, I'd never heard of one. (Similarly, I didn't know anyone who owned an AR-15 or AK until I went off to college. Never met anyone with a carry permit, etc.)

Now the "gun culture" is far more developed than it was a few decades ago (though certain elements like the hunting culture have perhaps declined somewhat) and the ease with which we share information, values, concerns, interests, etc. makes such things vastly more accessible to the "average" gun enthusiast. Instead of limiting the gun obsession to debating Model 70s vs. M700s in the local rod & gun shop, "Joe Average Shooter" can log in to dozens of gun forums every night and argue dB reduction levels of various suppressors, and find out how long it is taking the ATF to return a Form 1 this month, and make plans to travel next month to a machine gun shoot 300 miles away where he'll hang out with shooting buddies he's known for years but never met, etc.

It's a GOOD thing!

Of course, now -- just like happens when a few million young guys discover how cool are M1903s and Enfields and Mausers (that their dads bought for $20 to cut into hunting guns) -- there is a big demand for something that was a declining (or at least capped off) commodity 20+ years ago.

 

[speaksoftly]

Same reason people don't buy them now. They're friggin expensive.

 

[JHK94]

$49.00 for wouldn't get you much of a rifle now days at all, except maybe a worn-out one at a gun show

Of course, $49 in 1947 comes to $311 today, and you can get a nice .22 for that, for less even.

And $4 for a brick of 22s? That $25 now, and I can usually get bricks for $15. So it looks like guns and ammo are cheaper now...

 

[mokin]

Thanks 7thCavScout. I was thinking about that ad when I started reading this thread. That image stiicks in my head when I think about the availability of fully automatic guns "back in the day".