You'd like a machinegun like the on Granny had

The Tommy Gun is an "all-American" gun. Think of all the gun nuts who would like a machinegun like the one their gran had.

That is if granny was Ma Barker.

A hat tip to Stu Bykofsky for getting this out of me.

The NRA Official Position on Maching Guns - What is it?

Josh Sugarmann for The Huffington Post

According to National Rifle Association President David Keene, fully automatic weapons should be illegal.

As far as I know, this is actually news.

Keene, the father of a convicted road rage shooter, actually supports banning a category of firearm. Granted, for most people, outlawing machine guns would be a no-brainer, but let's remember the organization we're talking about here.

And, specifically, this guy: Wayne LaPierre.


In 1986, a ban on the manufacture of new fully automatic machine guns for civilian sale was added as a last-minute amendment to the NRA's federal flagship bill of the 1980s the "Firearms Owners' Protection Act," commonly known as "McClure-Volkmer" for its Senate (Jim McClure, R-ID) and House (Howard Volkmer, D-MO) sponsors. (A pool of pre-1986 machine guns registered and controlled under the National Firearms Act of 1934 remains available to private citizens under federal law.)

Sorry, but you don't have a right to machineguns under the Second Amendment.

It's going to be fun to see the reaction from the gunloons once they realise that Heller-McDonald may have been more of a Pyrrhic victory than they realise.  Mostly because they ignored this bit from the oral argument:

MR. GURA: Well, my response is that the government can ban arms that are not appropriate for civilian use. There is no question of that.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: That are not appropriate to –
MR. GURA: That are not appropriate to civilian use.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: For example?
MR. GURA: For example, I think machine guns: It’s difficult to imagine a construction of Miller, or a construction of the lower court’s opinion, that would sanction machine guns or the plastic, undetectable handguns that the Solicitor General spoke of.

And neglect that Scalia said:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

It's been my contention that these decisions were intended as a way of slowly breaking the bad news that even though it's an "individual right" that term is pretty meaningless when it comes down to the ownership and possession of deadly weapons.

The Wall Street Journal brings the bad news that:

The U.S. courts of appeals for the Third, Sixth and Eighth circuits have all said, in so many words, no right exists to have a machine gun. You can add the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the list.

In affirming the conviction of Alaskan Matthew Wayne Henry for possessing a homemade machine gun Thursday, the Ninth Circuit held:

We agree with the reasoning of our sister circuits that machine guns are “dangerous and unusual weapons” that are not protected by the Second Amendment. An object is “dangerous” when it is “likely to cause serious bodily harm.” Black’s Law Dictionary 451 (9th ed. 2009). Congress defines “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). The machine gun was first widely used during World War I, where it “demonstrated its murderously effective firepower over and over again.” William Rosenau, Book Note, The Origins of the First Modern Weapon, TECH. REV., Jan. 1987, at 74, (reviewing John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (1986). A modern machine gun can fire more than 1,000 rounds per minute, allowing a shooter to kill dozens of people within a matter of seconds. See George C. Wilson, Visible Violence, 12 NAT’L J. 886, 887 (2003). Short of bombs, missiles, and biochemical agents, we can conceive of few weapons that are more dangerous than machine guns.

Oh dear. What could be worse?  Perhaps the head of the UK's National Rifle Association saying that US Gun Loons are crazy:

Mabbott shakes his head. His reaction couldn’t be more different from that of the American National Rifle Association (NRA) following last month’s “Batman” shooting in Colorado, which left 12 people dead. One member of the American NRA, which is essentially the militant wing of the Republican Party and has a staggering seven million members, actually argued that the toll would have been lower if guns had been allowed in the cinema.

“They are fanatical,” says Mabbott. “Their main aim is to lobby for the protection of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I once had to sit through a diatribe from their CEO and it made me physically ill.”

Unfortunately, most people see the picture of the US NRA as an organisation for lunatics, criminals, and just plain whackjobs. Too bad the gunloons don't get that's how they are perceived.

Muh-Sheeen-GUNZ!

I made a comment in the Third World Gun Bazaar post that:

US gun loons do have the ability for fully automatic weapons--the problem is that they have to jump through a few more hoops to get them than just show up with a driver's licence.

can't have things like waiting periods, background checks, and fees spoiling their fun.

To which a gunloon came along and confirmed what I said by whining about all the hoops he had to go through to get a full-auto weapon. I mean other than Pakistan, where do people have the ability to own fully automatic weapons besides the US of A!

Actually, it IS a right in Pakistan! The Northwest Frontier Province permits the ownership of heavy weaponry including the use of rocket launchers, short-, medium-, and long-range rockets, anti-aircraft guns, mortars, etc. Pakistan Zindabad!

In fact, one thing I liked doing when I was in the Washington, DC area was to take foreign visitors to the gun stores where they sold machineguns. These days googling "machineguns for sale" will net a few US dealers who will sell them if you go through the necessary process.

After all, what other country has people posting youtube vids of themselves shooting 50 gallon drums and carving pumpins with firearms? Knob Creek Machinegun brings up this fiesta of firepower.




OK, the last one wasn't full auto, but...

As we said--Not much difference:

BTW, Heller-McDonald kinda made it clear that full-auto weapons were covered by the Second Amendment.

And if guns mean freedom, then Pakistan and Afghanistan must be the freest places on the planet!

Pakistan Zindabad!

.50 Caliber Machine Gun

I usually think this crazy fake-Russian guy is silly, but I must admit I enjoyed the tree cutting part.

I was wondering one thing though. Didn't our pro-gun friends make fun of and deny the need for restricting .50 caliber weapons? I remember when the suggestion was made that a round that big could bring down an airplane. They ridiculed the idea. What do you think?

Proper Gun Handling - Russian Style

Has Farago and his friends seen this?

I think this fake Russian guy is getting more reckless all the time. He's certainly not a good example for all the Neanderthal types who've watched the video, out of 3 million views, I'm sure there are plenty of those who think he's more fun than a tornado in a trailer park.

Nazi Stuff For Sale

via Media Matters

As a result, the Kentucky machine gun shoot, which is credibly billed as the largest festival of its kind in the world, exhibits the gun show equivalent of a split personality. The rent-a-machine-gun portion of the event is family-oriented. Fathers pay 80 bucks for their young sons to churn up the water of a holler pond with 60 rounds from a Heckler & Koch MP-5. Meanwhile, under the pavilion awning a short walk away, vendors hawk Joseph Goebbels propaganda and SS lightning bolt sweatshirts.

This spring, one of the hottest selling t-shirts at the machine gun shoot read "Armed Infidel" on the front. On the back: "Everything I needed to know about Islam I learned on 9-11." The creator of the shirts, Lexington, Kentucky resident John Lang, told me that he was inspired to make them by watching cable news.

I guess Fat White Man hasn't made it down to Kentucky in a while. He was very clear that there's none of that Nazi crap at the gun shows he attends.

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.

More on the Bizilj Case

We talked about it before, but now the Police Chief is finally going to trial. I guess they decided he is responsible after all.

At first I thought they'd drop the charges, after all he didn't pull the trigger.  But at least they'll be a trial.  Let's see if he gets a slap on the wrist or not.

Of course I don't think it should stop there. Several others should be going to trial too, starting with the dad.  They should all do a little time for this and then never touch guns again the rest of their lives.

What's your opinion?  Would that be too severe since it was only an accident?

Please leave a comment.

"Machine Gun" D'Annunzio Loses in NC

USA Today reports on what might be the North Carolina Republican party coming to its senses.

Chalk up one victory for party leaders on an otherwise anti-establishment night: Tim D'Annunzio, who made national headlines with his "machine gun social" fundraisers, has gone down to defeat in a North Carolina congressional runoff, the Associated Press reports.

The victor in the race, former sportscaster Harold Johnson, got a big boost from Republican party leaders anxious to avoid a controversy-plagued candidate in a district they think they can win this fall.

Isn't running a machine gun party like putting all your eggs in one basket? Do you think most North Carolinians would like such a thing?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

A Really Cool Gun

"Designed for use against live targets, including targets protected with body armor, and unarmored vehicles (cars. trucks, etc.)"

The ATF's Machine Gun Sting

The Dallas Morning News reports on the arrest of a man trying to buy machine guns for Mexico.

A south Texas man is in federal custody on gun charges after attempting to purchase 10 fully automatic machine guns from an undercover federal agent for delivery to Mexico.

Joel Santos, a 23-year-old from Mission, was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiring to receive a firearm not registered to him.

Gustavo Chavez Delamora, a Mexican citizen, was arrested on the same charge.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Santos delivered $12,000 in exchange for the guns to an undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Santos allegedly paid an additional $6,000 for 15 handguns.

You know what I've heard a number of times? Pro gun folks told me none of the automatic weapons found in Mexico could have come from the U.S. because they're illegal here. As it turns out, illegal or not, machine guns are indeed being bought and sold and trafficked in the U.S. Do you think those responsible for that activity are otherwise law-abiding gun owners who've been turned into criminals by the unjust laws?

Please leave a comment.

The Bizilj Case Back in the News

The Boston Globe reports on the sanctions rendered against the gun club in which an 8-year-old accidentally killed himself with a machine gun. When we talked about this before the gun lovers basically said these events are just good clean fun and it rarely happens that something goes wrong anyway.

Seventeen months after an 8-year-old Connecticut boy fatally shot himself with a machine gun provided at a Massachusetts gun range, the Westfield Sportsman's Club pleaded no contest today to a manslaughter charge and to furnishing a machine gun to a child.

As part of a settlement in Springfield Superior Court, the club agreed to pay a $1,000 fine for the manslaughter charge and to pay $10,000 to two charities that work with children.

Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., died on Oct. 26, 2008, after losing control of a high-powered Uzi machine gun, which recoiled and fatally shot him in the head. The boy's father had brought him to a gun shooting event at the club.

Besides Christopher's father who brought him to this sick event and was too far removed from the action to be of help, it came out later that the one responsible for supervising the boy was just a kid himself.

The mother asked how it could have happened that it was an unlicensed 15-year-old boy, the son of one of the gun dealers sponsoring the event, who was in charge of supervising her son.

"How could [the gun dealer] think his 15-year-old son could possibly be mature enough and skilled enough to put a powerful automatic weapon in the hands of an 8-year-old boy? How could gun club range officers allow non-certified instructors to be in control?" she asked, adding, "It is hard to comprehend the extent of negligence that went on that afternoon."

So, just so no one can say the gun club and all the dads involved got off light, there was another legal consequence.

"There will be no more automatic weapons at the Sportsman's Club. That's the condition I accept this plea," the judge said. "We cannot endure another case like this. This has shaken the conscience of the whole community."

To me this sounds almost like a cover-up, something you'd expect in Alabama or Indiana. What's the point of all those strict gun laws in the North East if they let people and gun clubs get away with stuff like this with a slap on the wrist?

What's your opinion? You know what I think. The dads involved in this case, and all the other gun-dads, should be ashamed of themselves. But, I'd like to hear what you think.

Please leave a comment.

I Like Guns

FishyJay sent me this with the simple remark "you might have fun with this." Well indeed I did. I loved it. It helped me to clarify something too. I really can't accept the 2nd Amendment justification which I think is a manipulation and a distortion. Nor can I accept the self-defense one, which I see as paranoia. But, "I like guns" works for me. Why can't the pro gun folks just say that?

The Machine Gun Lesson

During the Prohibition period, machine guns were the preferred weapon of the organized crime gangsters who flourished. Obviously the increased firepower fully automatic weapons provided made them very valuable in fighting the police and other gangs. In 1934, The National Firearms Act put an end to all that. Well short of an actual ban, the NFA was a severe regostration, licensing and taxation statute, with regards certain weapons including the machine gun.

All NFA items must be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Private owners wishing to purchase an NFA item must obtain permission from the ATF, obtain a signature from the county or city or town chief of police (not necessarily permission), pass an extensive background check to include submitting a photograph and finger prints, fully register the firearm, receive ATF written permission before moving the firearm across state lines, and pay a tax. The request to transfer ownership of an NFA item is made on an ATF Form 4.

The only thing more astounding than the results of this legislation is the fact that pro-gun folks keep saying gun control laws don't work. The most common reason they give is that criminals won't obey them. Well, what happens is this. When every machine gun is registered and every owner is licensed after having passed such a rigorous background check, very few of these guns end up in the wrong hands. It does not depend on criminal compliance.

From The GunCite:

In 1995 there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF. About half are owned by civilians and the other half by police departments and other governmental agencies (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.)

Since 1934, Prof. Kleck has determined only 2 homicides were committed with legally owned machine guns, and only slightly more than that with illegal ones.

Again in Targeting Guns, Kleck writes, four police officers were killed in the line of duty by machine guns from 1983 to 1992. (713 law enforcement officers were killed during that period, 651 with guns.)

In 1980, when Miami's homicide rate was at an all-time high, less than 1% of all homicides involved machine guns. (Miami was supposedly a "machine gun Mecca" and drug trafficking capital of the U.S.) Although there are no national figures to compare to, machine gun deaths were probably lower elsewhere.

• Of 2,200 guns recovered by Minneapolis police (1987-1989), not one was fully automatic.

• A total of 420 weapons, including 375 guns, were seized during drug warrant executions and arrests by the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad (Will and Grundie counties in the Chicago metropolitan area, 1980-1989). None of the guns was a machine gun.

• 16 of 2,359 (0.7%) of the guns seized in the Detroit area (1991-1992) in connection with "the investigation of narcotics trafficking operations" were machine guns.

Dennis A. Henigan says this on page 60 of Lethal Logic.

Of course there may be sound policy objections to imposing on handguns the same tight controls we impose on manchine guns. But the "criminals will always get guns" argument is not one of them. Based on the machine gun regulatory experience there should at least be a presumption that a strong, well-administered licensing and registration system can be as effective for other firearms as it has been for machine guns.

What's your opinion? What would those "sound policy objections" be? I honestly can't think of a one.

Please leave a comment.