Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Machine Guns in The Carolinas

As usual when the pro-gun crowd say something over and over again, you have to wonder if it's true.

Privacy laws make it impossible for the public to know who in their region owns machine guns. But there are thousands of them in the Carolinas.

In 2000, there were about 9,500 registered machine guns in the Carolinas, according to the most recent publicly available data. (Those numbers probably haven't changed much because a federal law - aimed at restricting automatic weapons - prohibits civilians from buying machine guns manufactured after May 1986, according to Earl Woodham, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.)

I know, now the argument will switch to what's so much more dangerous about an automatic weapon anyway.

The point is, the gun crowd commonly says they're banned or so heavily restricted they might as well be banned. That doesn't seem to be the case.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

9 comments:

  1. Mike, as a token of my best seasonal wishes of all varieties, and appreciation of what you try to do with your blog, I would like to direct your attention to this little item, regarding guns, idiocy, death and bad sex.
    http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/28/oklahoma.sex.death/index.html

    2011 will be a very interesting year, we can make a difference!

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  2. "The point is, the gun crowd commonly says they're banned or so heavily restricted they might as well be banned. That doesn't seem to be the case."

    Seems to be the case to me, otherwise there would be 950,000 as opposed to just 9,500.

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  3. That's kinda funny. The Brady Bunch has stated that semi-autos are actually more dangerous than full-autos because one can make accurate single shots rather than "spray and pray".

    But then again, the Brady Bunch has never met a gun it didn't want to ban.

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  4. I remember the property book value for a 14.5" bbl, 3-round burst M4 in the Army was around $650 or so. I'm sure the government gets a nifty bulk purchase discount, but I can't believe a new military-grade M4 would be much more than $1000 or $1200 or so. I would certainly buy more than a couple of NFA weapons at those prices. However, thanks to the Hughes Amendment (the de-facto ban to which we refer), I'm sure the price is well over $10K!

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  5. ...and in 50 years, how many legally owned machine guns have been used in crimes?

    2...look it up.

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  6. Anonymous is repeating one of the most famous pro-gun lies. Only 2 times has a fully automatic weapon been used in a crime in 50 years.

    How can anyone be so biased and close-minded to even repeat something that ridiculous? Amazing!

    AztecRed, the 9,500 are just in the Carolinas.

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  7. MikeB,

    You have examples of more than 2 actually used in crime in the U.S. from the last 50 years?

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  8. Mike, the claim is that only two legally owned machine guns have been used in a crime in the last 50 years. No telling how many illegal machine guns smuggled in from the Mexican cartels or wherever have been used.

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  9. Colin, You're absolutely right. This is the pro-gun trick of drawing that moveable line between themselves and the "criminals." When one of your own acts up, you simply relegate him to the Kingdom of the Bad Guys and, voila he's not one of you any longer.

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