Speaking of it's rate of fire, at one point the ATF declared that a shoestring was a machinegun because it could be used to make an M1 rifle fire in an automatic fashion[1]. A decade or so later, they backpedaled a bit and said that shoestrings are only machineguns when they're attached to M1 rifles in a way that causes them to fire multiple times with a single trigger pull
According to the literal text of the statute quoted there, the definition of "machinegun" hinges on a "single function of the trigger". If the shoestring achieves rapid fire by causing multiple functions of the trigger, how is it a machinegun by that definition?
Also, for anyone like me who expected that jpg would be a photo of the shoestring instead of text on paper, here's what it looks like.
Presumably if I had a semi-automatic rifle and I attached a solenoid to the rifle's trigger then set up an arduino to actuate the solenoid at 2Hz whenever a button was held down, the button would become the gun's trigger for purposes of determining whether the rifle+solenoid+arduino assembly was a machine gun.
I may be wrong (I'm not going to try it myself!) but from what I understand that works with M1 Carbines and Mini-14s, but not M1 Garands. This photo of such a shoestring on a Mini-14 has been floating around for years: https://i.imgur.com/5N3EHxh.jpg
This interpretation seems a little weird not because of the apparent declaration that a shoestring is a machine gun, but because a machine gun is defined in law as a firearm that fires more than one shot with "single function of the trigger". The shoestring in this case resets the trigger after firing so that it can be pulled again. It does not cause additional shots to be fired without a separate movement of the trigger caused by the shooter's muscles pulling on it.
Don't make me google it, but I thought they also consider a device that can make a semi-auto into full-auto a machinegun in itself. So much like an AR lower receiver, the shoestring is the gun, even though it doesn't have any classic gun features like a bolt, barrel, or breech, etc.
Also, in the M1/shoestring case, the operator just puts tension on the string, and the charging handle cycling back and forth is what releases and applies that pressure to the trigger, so it is just one pull of their finger.
Double-barreled firearms usually do not fire both barrels as a result of a single pull of a single trigger. Oddly, the AF2011A1 double-barreled handgun does fire both barrels with a single pull of a single trigger and is apparently not regulated as a machine gun.
I'm confused as to why; it fits the statutory definition much more than trigger reset devices like the aforementioned shoestring do.
Firearms regulation has a real "gun of Theseus" problem: if you have multiple parts combined into an illegal weapon, which one of those is the illegal part?
Generally the one that makes it illegal. For the AR platform, for instance, that would be the full-auto trigger group and a lower receiver drilled for a third hole to accommodate it.
Some pro-gun people have gone to great lengths to find loopholes in the machine gun laws, and most of them are currently tied up in litigation with the ATF.
In absence of an easy definition, what is illegal should be the gun which has the capability that is banned.
If someone wraps a shoestring around a trigger group to make it "automatic", boom, it's an automatic weapon, seize the gun and arrest the citizen. It's the characteristic.
It's why banning guns based off scary black foregrips is silly. If we were to limit guns meaningfully in the US, we should ban all semi-automatic weapons with interchangeable magazines. You still have bolt actions, revolvers, shotguns, but this lowers rate of fire/reload time in combination well enough to meaningfully encumber terrorists.
For the 2A crowd ( of which I am a tepid member), my main principle is that citizens should be no less armed than their domestic law enforcement. So if we as a country made such a change, we would have to set a date past which domestic law enforcement must also switch back to revolvers and shotguns only.
And now we really live in a fantasy world! Truly, it would be better for society to be less armed, but we're past the point of no return. I say this as someone who owns close to a dozen firearms, including mosins, AR-15 and several semi-automatic pistols.
Yup. And it always was, near as I can tell. For a long time it’s been about the PR and how it ‘feels’ when selling the law though, not about actually solving a real problem.
The reason why Law Enforcement is never going to do that is because they regularly run across criminals that are already better armed than they are. LAPD started carrying AR-15s (and for many units full auto M4s) because of the North Hollywood bank shootout [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout] for instance. And there have been many instances since then.
This isn’t a theoretical concern for normal folks either, even in the Bay Area. Just a few years ago, there was an attempted home invasion robbery in Sunnyvale by someone armed with what clearly would be classified as an assault rifle in CAlifornia, with what looked like a drum magazine.
Both are major felonies to possess in California. Which, of course, isn’t likely to stop someone who was clearly intent on committing several felonies already. They never caught them, so it wasn’t clear if it was fully automatic or not. Thankfully the owner was suspicious enough it didn’t turn into an actual home invasion, and Sunnyvale has enough bored cops the perps bugged out before they could force the issue.
But this isn’t that unusual or isolated of an incident. And very few places are as well run as Sunnyvale.
The laws definitely stop anyone law abiding from having something similar.
So why should someone law abiding be willfully handicapped against something like that? Cop or civilian?
We can argue training or licensing, burden of proof to show you’re law abiding, or whatever - but that’s not the state of the situation in CAlifornia as I’m sure you’re aware. Or most of the other states where possession of those things is illegal. It’s just flat out illegal - unless you work for the police, anyway.
Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down.
I get your point about how bad guys have good weapons sometimes and so people and cops need to be armed, too.
Yup. It would reduce supply significantly, and frequency they show up for sure. But as I noted in another reply, Europe is about as restrictive as it comes and you still end up with things like [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66059738.amp].
> Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down.*
I don't support the most extremist takes on it, but with comments like this, you aren't a "tepid 2A supporter." You flat out oppose it, so let's at least clear the air and be honest.
In an AR-15, if you put a dot of paint where you would drill the hole for the pin that makes it automatically, that prison time even if it’s never drilled and it’s physically impossible to install the pin for the auto seer.
Likewise, a guy recently got put in prison for painting the design for an automatic part on a piece of sheet metal.
The ATF needs to be reigned in hard. Information isn’t the same as doing.
I’ve looked into Regs in a number of countries, and they all either outright ban nearly everything unless you work for the gov’t, or have the same issues.
The US just has massive amounts of complaining and BS going on in every area, so it’s more visible. In Switzerland, for one example, you’d just hear some griping from dude at the range, not be able to link to a an hour long YouTube video on it.
The tricky part here is the US is essentially 53+ different entities legally, with large and meaningful differences between each of them and some overlap.
Less than an hours drive can take you from ‘no magazines over 10 rounds or years in jail’ to ‘60 round drums on sale, don’t forget to pickup a few up after renting a couple machine guns and sending a few thousand rounds down range’. With no real border in between.
In the rest of the world, those are national borders, with customs inspections.
You can pay some folks in Vietnam to be able to shoot RPGs no issues, and Finland/Scandinavia is generally permissive with firearms for instance. And if you know someone in Russia (especially Chechnya I hear) and have money, no issues getting pretty much anything you want and the paperwork to say it’s all good.
Good luck doing that in their neighbors or as a normal Joe though.
You just made my point: Automatic firearms are illegal for civilians, barrel length for semi-automatic ones and magazine size is heavly limited (the former min, the latter max limits).
The result: A shit ton of less gun violence and mass shootings. So yes, everyone else has it figured out. Only the US insists on being the real world version of the movie wild west. You want to wear tacticool gear and camo, fire automatic weapons? Join the armed forces. That so makes SpecOps cos olay so much harder and requires discipline, regulations and includes the risl of being shot at by equally trained people in active shooting wars. Ranting at the range and posting on YouTube is much easier in comparison, that is true.
Your run the mill AR-15 style rifle is illegal in most of Europe (barrel length) and magazine capacity is limited to 10 in Germany (you can legally buy HK415/416, the HK improved versions in 5.56/7.62 of the AR-15).
Gun diacussions with American si weirder than speed limit discussions with Germans.
Screw the exact model used. In number of gun deatshy mass shootings and the like the US is leading. Unless you want to dispute that simple fact. But hey, you do you, I am happy were I am knowing not every weirdo might have an arsenal at home his aon might take to my kids school or my office one day because he got up on the wrong foot.
That’s frankly media driven fear mongering (likely self re-enforcing, or as the media notes ‘Mass shooting contagion’), not a legitimate threat (though we seem to be t trying to make it one!) which is the point of the discussion.
It’s literally not even in the top 10 for how people die at work. You’re far more likely to die in the drive to work, 100x more likely. Or from Covid. Or frankly, most anything else.
No idea. Also not relevant, those bans will never be lifted. We are currently discussing dress codes at public schools so. Make of that whatever you want.
Does DE have drug gangs fighting for control of territory? The other gun related crimes are offshoots of this or mentally ill people with access to guns.
Plenty of those countries you can get automatic weapons. Several of them completely legally, including literal AK-47’s. Switzerland issues automatic weapons in some situations, for keeping at home.
Plenty of those countries have notable gun (or other) violence issues - though they often categorize it differently. Most of them don’t.
In Mexico mere possession of a semi-automatic gun is a 20 year felony. I forget the penalty for machine guns, but it’s higher. Does Mexico have it under control? Do you think those laws are helping or hurting the situation?
Machine guns are so heavily regulated in the US that only two times since 1934 have legal ones been used in crimes - the most
recent in ‘84 by a police officer using his department issued one.
Yet, it’s a common problem that criminals are using modified weapons (easy to do, especially with cheap kits ordered online or from China), and police are finding them more and more often during busts - everywhere. Not just in the US.
The US is about as far from the actual Wild West as you can get. Unless the FBI was running background checks on every purchase back in the 1880’s anyway. But it does get all the press.
Mexico is basically in a civil war with drug cartels, whom are getting their arms from the US! Illegally of course, but still.
Good that you bring up Switzerland. Because they have a long history of a militia (!) based military. So, Switzerland is actually a good example what "a well regulated militia" looks like. Glad you see that.
Regarding statistics on gun violence in general, if ypu see no problem because war zones have bigger issues says a lot.
most American gun violence (the vast majority) tends to happen in areas that can easily be classified as urban war zones for the same reasons as much of the violence in Mexico. If you’ve been to the areas of Oakland, Chicago, Salinas, etc. that show up a lot, it’s frankly clear that they are.
Much if the South American violence never ends up in an identifiable statistic. Especially in places like Guatemala.
As always with statistics, the collection and context matters a lot.
There is no part of the city of Chicago that in any sense resembles a war zone. Violence on the south and west sides of Chicago is notable in part for how attractive some of the neighborhoods are. Drop a pin on Englewood or Austin and drive around a bit in Google Maps. Tree canopy, big houses, kids playing in the streets.
The violence in these areas is very real, but they aren't no-mans-lands as people so often try to insist they are.
In fact, slums as such have simply disappeared from Chicago, to be replaced by large vacant lots. Some because buildings were torn down after being abandoned, and some, unfortunately, from arson.
Ok, in Russia you could for a while buy attack helicopters whole sale. Chechnya is a dormer war zone, as are the Balkans and even Serbia implemented gun control measures after one (!) school shooting...
What's next? Military grade weapons readily available in Afghanistan and some African countries?
Let’s see. South Africa. Well, most of Africa. Most of the Middle East. Anywhere in central or South America (with one or two small exceptions). Large swathes of Asia, except for China, and portions of India.
I’m pointing out that ‘everyone else has it under control’ is actually ‘a few Western European, a handful of ex Western European colonies, and a handful of totalitarian dictatorships have it under control’. And even then, not as under control or as different as the PR would necessarily lead you to believe.
Africa, famous for being home to multiple civil wars, child soldiers, war lords rebels and the like since the early 60s. Sure, that is supposed to be the bench mark for the US (in all honesty, it seems to be fitting sometimes so). Asia, well, South East Asia ia similar from Vietnam to Laos (a lot of their guns were importes by the Americans during the Vietnam war). Some countries are military dictatorships with opposing rebel groups.
So yes, my point stands, all countries that actually are in position (read no internal or external armed conflicts, no civip war like situations, no destabilized government) have it under control. The US gets rightly called out for it, as the only (presumely) developed democracy with this kind of problem.
IMO not really. For example some countries (eg Germany) have different rules for which parts of guns are serialized and regulated. So it's possible to get a barrel for a legal rifle and replace the lower receiver with fully automatic HK416 parts, which are available over the counter without any licensing or other restrictions.
Seems like a classic case of the innovator or early adopter's dilemma. If you're one of the first to do a new thing (in this case, semi-automatic rifles for your army) then you risk getting stuck with something that lacks refinement (smaller cartridge, removable magazines, select fire). Those latter two were retrofitted to the M1 to make the M14, but the full sized rifle cartridge wasn't a good fit.
The US military's new M7 rifle with its 6.8x51mm cartridge suggests current military leaders do not think the full-power rifle cartridge was a mistake.
It was a mistake at the time, but we've come around full circle a bit. If I recall correctly, and I am not a military expert, engagements are happening at longer distances again and enemies have stronger body armor. Thus the need once more for a large cartridge.
The shift is more that that the military leaders think that the battle environment is changing again and this is to preempt that shift.
Part of it is the perceived expectation of going against infantry with better body armor, and part of it is improved electronics. The M7 has a fire control computer built into the optic which should allow for easier engagements at extended range.
The French small arms seem particularly afflicted by this.
The Lebel rifle is notable for being the first rifle which used smokeless gunpowder. (This made the bullet much faster; but also didn't reveal the shooter's positions in the same way that blackpowder did). Smokeless was so good, that the rifle's development was rushed, in secrecy.
Aside from being smokeless, the Lebel had technology that was the state of the art at the time... but, within a few short years, was almost obsolete for its lack of rapid loading, and its awkwardly shaped cartridge.
I think the French were working on replacing their infantry rifles with the next-generation technology of repeating rifles, but were unable to do so before WWI.
Another thing not touched on here - horse cavalry was still a concern before the war! A round being large enough to kill a horse quickly is part of the reason they were so big to begin with.
Future Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov was a cavalry man in the Tsarist Army during WW1 (he got injured somewhere in Eastern Transylvania while riding his horse at some point) and in the inter-war period he served in a cavalry unit in Izyum (or close to it), a city known today because of its vicinity to the Ukrainian - Russian front. He had a love of horses throughout his career, which probably explains this famous victory parade photo. [1]
Of course, at some point during the WW2 Eastern Campaign horse-traction became very important, especially for the Germans (hard to do logistics beyond the Don river when there’s no railway nearby).
I have a feeling that at some point in the future (when the oil will have run out, for example) we’ll get back to horse-assisted warfare.
As it turned out, the 5.56 mm round is not the best choice neither. Hence a variwty of 7.62 mm chambered rifles in use and the new US army assault rifle.
As with everything engineering, it is a trade off.
I have childhood memories of the M1. We spent summers at unlikely places like Camp Perry, Ohio and Quantico, Virginia. My father, a civilian, was an instructor and shot for the state team. I ran around the bases and spent time in the 1000yd pits. I wish I still had the unofficial "pit pig" t-shirt. Later as a teen I didn't have the patience to strap myself into a shooting jacket and bake in the sun so never developed the skill he had.
It's never too late. I shoot as a hobby. I got introduced into it as a young kid shooting single shot .22LR in summer camp (it was a different time), or maybe at my grandparent's farm; I was so young I don't remember. It gets me outside, gives me something to look forward to and you can really nerd out on reloading and DOPE charts and all that. Gun smithing isn't that hard for most things, so you can nerd out on that too, like building your own computers.
Oh, I know, I have an application to a local range sitting right here! But I have other non-tech hobbies in motorcycling, metal working, and archery... I haven't made the time.
Careful with those motorcycles. I rode them for a while but stopped when I kept reading about deaths every day for 2 weeks. Also recently found out our neighbor lost their college age son to a motorcycle wreck. It's the other drivers and there isn't much you can do about it, even if you are an expert rider. They're fun, but damn, not worth it to me.
Thank you, I won't jinx myself but I'm going on my thirty-sixth year as a motorcyclist including years riding (and bicycling) in NYC. I improve my odds by practicing annually and wearing fully armored gear including spine and chest protection. I ride more cautiously and anticipate more than I used to but I am aware it's not going to make a significant difference if a SUV crosses the center line at speed.
I know one guy who still hunts to feed his family, he's out year round and in any weather... He swears by an M1.
Everybody else I know who has them doesn't really use them; they're a backup thats on the rack because they saw it cheap at a show or got it from someone as a gift etc. "every long arm collector should have one"
Where is he? I ask because in the Northeast most game is taken at relatively short distances, tens rather than hundreds of yards. That's one heavy rifle to lug around if he's stalking. The old school Model-94 30-30 is around seven pounds and considered heavy.
West TN. He uses a 4 wheeler and tree stands as well as hunting a couple large cornfields. I doubt he'll be doing it that much longer, if he hasn't already given up; I know his knees bother him.
Ammo manufacturers make ammo that's labeled to be spec'd as M1 or M2 ball. You have to look for it but it's not hard to find. Or just roll your own. The specs aren't hard to find online, so long as you also bounce them off a reputable reloading manual and don't just freelance.
That is actually one of the weaker articles on acoup. But maybe it is the beginning of a series, because whatever weapons an army uses, those work in an evironment defined by tactics and doctrine. And those three influence each other.
I was able to visit the Springfield Armory a few weeks ago, and they had a large section on the Garand. Here's a couple of pictures I took, including serial number 1, serial number 51 (the first machine-made M1 Garand), and serial number 6,084,405 (the production M1).
The Garand paratrooper model kept my grandfather alive in the Army Air Corps. He had a deactivated one clutched by deer hooves on a plaque mounted near the ceiling.
Interesting discussion on how they tested with a .276, considering they are tooling up to move the US military from a 5.56mm to a .277/6.8mm round in the new xm7 rifles.
> He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism.
> After the war, Murphy embarked on a 21-year acting career. He played himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name,
M1 is a great autoloader, and this article really spells out the difficulty in getting the Defense Department to . . ahh . . stop looking towards the past. I was gonna say something different but thought better of it.
I'd also like to shine a light on early efforts at an individual squad automatic weapon in the former Russian Empire, culminating in the 1915 Fedorov Avtomat:
The Russians had arguably the most combat experience with high volume of fire in defense, thanks to the experiences of the Russo-Japanese war, and what's more, they sought to capitalize on it, seeing it as working hand in hand with the geographic strengths of the Empire. The Revolution put a serious speed bump in that, obviously, as the most forward thinking military folks were not going to get on terribly well during the purges. Tukhachevsky says hello.
But if the Fedorov had just a slightly different timeline, we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1. As it was, we had to wait for the AVS-36 to make its appearance as the first selective fire battle rifle.
> we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1
but there were plenty automatic rifle designs by the ww2, still most infantry used bolt action rifles, likely bottleneck was in reliable mass manufacturing.
1. Militaries generally feared their soldiers using too much ammo. Eg the magazine Lee Enfield was only supplied with one magazine, and early on was only intended to be fired single shot with the magazine used in an emergency.
2. Cost. You see all kinds of conversion proposals to update bolt action rifles for this reason. I believe the French actually updated flintlock rifles all the way up to breach loaders rather than buying new.
Yeah, they were stuck with what they had tooling for. That was specifically brought up in the case of the Red Army: they had designs, but they couldn't possibly supply the numbers. Not after the purges, and then the utterly preposterous losses of 1941-1942. Which, well, a lot of that was the purges. It forced them to re-equip the whole Red Army three times over.
I guess without the purges, a whole lot changes. It's a huge wildcard in the alternate history.
Also, doctrine, logistics, the everything . . just didn't know what to do with a infantry platoon when everyone has a machine gun. It screwed up the machine . . and, let's be honest, the infantryman's small arm is a teensy tiny minority of where casualties come from. Even back in 1941. Far better to keep the big wheel turning with motorized transport, artillery, aircraft.
103 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 249 ms ] thread[1]: https://i.imgur.com/269aaSq.jpg
Also, for anyone like me who expected that jpg would be a photo of the shoestring instead of text on paper, here's what it looks like.
https://i.imgur.com/5N3EHxh.jpg
Also, in the M1/shoestring case, the operator just puts tension on the string, and the charging handle cycling back and forth is what releases and applies that pressure to the trigger, so it is just one pull of their finger.
[1] https://tippmannordnance.com/22lr-gatling-gun/
so, double barrels are machine guns..
I'm confused as to why; it fits the statutory definition much more than trigger reset devices like the aforementioned shoestring do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_Firearms_AF2011A1
This one is really an anomaly, it appears they skirt the regulation by having two triggers stuck together.
https://stdgun.com/s333-thunderstruck-gen-ii/
Some pro-gun people have gone to great lengths to find loopholes in the machine gun laws, and most of them are currently tied up in litigation with the ATF.
Is the third hole the problem?
Or the drop in auto sear?
Or the combination?
According to the ATF, it’s any of the three of course. Plus anything else that they don’t like.
If someone wraps a shoestring around a trigger group to make it "automatic", boom, it's an automatic weapon, seize the gun and arrest the citizen. It's the characteristic.
It's why banning guns based off scary black foregrips is silly. If we were to limit guns meaningfully in the US, we should ban all semi-automatic weapons with interchangeable magazines. You still have bolt actions, revolvers, shotguns, but this lowers rate of fire/reload time in combination well enough to meaningfully encumber terrorists.
For the 2A crowd ( of which I am a tepid member), my main principle is that citizens should be no less armed than their domestic law enforcement. So if we as a country made such a change, we would have to set a date past which domestic law enforcement must also switch back to revolvers and shotguns only.
And now we really live in a fantasy world! Truly, it would be better for society to be less armed, but we're past the point of no return. I say this as someone who owns close to a dozen firearms, including mosins, AR-15 and several semi-automatic pistols.
The reason why Law Enforcement is never going to do that is because they regularly run across criminals that are already better armed than they are. LAPD started carrying AR-15s (and for many units full auto M4s) because of the North Hollywood bank shootout [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout] for instance. And there have been many instances since then.
This isn’t a theoretical concern for normal folks either, even in the Bay Area. Just a few years ago, there was an attempted home invasion robbery in Sunnyvale by someone armed with what clearly would be classified as an assault rifle in CAlifornia, with what looked like a drum magazine.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/police-2-armed...]
Both are major felonies to possess in California. Which, of course, isn’t likely to stop someone who was clearly intent on committing several felonies already. They never caught them, so it wasn’t clear if it was fully automatic or not. Thankfully the owner was suspicious enough it didn’t turn into an actual home invasion, and Sunnyvale has enough bored cops the perps bugged out before they could force the issue.
But this isn’t that unusual or isolated of an incident. And very few places are as well run as Sunnyvale.
The laws definitely stop anyone law abiding from having something similar.
So why should someone law abiding be willfully handicapped against something like that? Cop or civilian?
We can argue training or licensing, burden of proof to show you’re law abiding, or whatever - but that’s not the state of the situation in CAlifornia as I’m sure you’re aware. Or most of the other states where possession of those things is illegal. It’s just flat out illegal - unless you work for the police, anyway.
Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down.
I get your point about how bad guys have good weapons sometimes and so people and cops need to be armed, too.
I don't support the most extremist takes on it, but with comments like this, you aren't a "tepid 2A supporter." You flat out oppose it, so let's at least clear the air and be honest.
In an AR-15, if you put a dot of paint where you would drill the hole for the pin that makes it automatically, that prison time even if it’s never drilled and it’s physically impossible to install the pin for the auto seer.
Likewise, a guy recently got put in prison for painting the design for an automatic part on a piece of sheet metal.
The ATF needs to be reigned in hard. Information isn’t the same as doing.
I’ve looked into Regs in a number of countries, and they all either outright ban nearly everything unless you work for the gov’t, or have the same issues.
The US just has massive amounts of complaining and BS going on in every area, so it’s more visible. In Switzerland, for one example, you’d just hear some griping from dude at the range, not be able to link to a an hour long YouTube video on it.
The tricky part here is the US is essentially 53+ different entities legally, with large and meaningful differences between each of them and some overlap.
Less than an hours drive can take you from ‘no magazines over 10 rounds or years in jail’ to ‘60 round drums on sale, don’t forget to pickup a few up after renting a couple machine guns and sending a few thousand rounds down range’. With no real border in between.
In the rest of the world, those are national borders, with customs inspections.
You can pay some folks in Vietnam to be able to shoot RPGs no issues, and Finland/Scandinavia is generally permissive with firearms for instance. And if you know someone in Russia (especially Chechnya I hear) and have money, no issues getting pretty much anything you want and the paperwork to say it’s all good.
Good luck doing that in their neighbors or as a normal Joe though.
The result: A shit ton of less gun violence and mass shootings. So yes, everyone else has it figured out. Only the US insists on being the real world version of the movie wild west. You want to wear tacticool gear and camo, fire automatic weapons? Join the armed forces. That so makes SpecOps cos olay so much harder and requires discipline, regulations and includes the risl of being shot at by equally trained people in active shooting wars. Ranting at the range and posting on YouTube is much easier in comparison, that is true.
Automatic firearms are illegal for not rich civilians in the US.
It's perfectly legal to go but a machine gun, they just start at like $20k.
But regardless, the amount of crime from legal machine guns is like two crimes in 90 years.
Gun diacussions with American si weirder than speed limit discussions with Germans.
AR-15 is a Boogeyman/trap for gun discussions, because it's a rounding error when looking at the whole issue of violence in the US.
It’s literally not even in the top 10 for how people die at work. You’re far more likely to die in the drive to work, 100x more likely. Or from Covid. Or frankly, most anything else.
Sounds like a mental health issue and not a firearms issue
For sure, but almost exclusively due to handguns.
I mean rifles as a whole (of which AR-15s and their derivatives are a subset) are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of homicides in the US.
Plenty of those countries you can get automatic weapons. Several of them completely legally, including literal AK-47’s. Switzerland issues automatic weapons in some situations, for keeping at home.
Plenty of those countries have notable gun (or other) violence issues - though they often categorize it differently. Most of them don’t.
In Mexico mere possession of a semi-automatic gun is a 20 year felony. I forget the penalty for machine guns, but it’s higher. Does Mexico have it under control? Do you think those laws are helping or hurting the situation?
Machine guns are so heavily regulated in the US that only two times since 1934 have legal ones been used in crimes - the most recent in ‘84 by a police officer using his department issued one.
Yet, it’s a common problem that criminals are using modified weapons (easy to do, especially with cheap kits ordered online or from China), and police are finding them more and more often during busts - everywhere. Not just in the US.
The US is about as far from the actual Wild West as you can get. Unless the FBI was running background checks on every purchase back in the 1880’s anyway. But it does get all the press.
Good that you bring up Switzerland. Because they have a long history of a militia (!) based military. So, Switzerland is actually a good example what "a well regulated militia" looks like. Glad you see that.
Regarding statistics on gun violence in general, if ypu see no problem because war zones have bigger issues says a lot.
Much if the South American violence never ends up in an identifiable statistic. Especially in places like Guatemala.
As always with statistics, the collection and context matters a lot.
The violence in these areas is very real, but they aren't no-mans-lands as people so often try to insist they are.
What's next? Military grade weapons readily available in Afghanistan and some African countries?
I’m pointing out that ‘everyone else has it under control’ is actually ‘a few Western European, a handful of ex Western European colonies, and a handful of totalitarian dictatorships have it under control’. And even then, not as under control or as different as the PR would necessarily lead you to believe.
The US gets the mindshare and publicity though.
So yes, my point stands, all countries that actually are in position (read no internal or external armed conflicts, no civip war like situations, no destabilized government) have it under control. The US gets rightly called out for it, as the only (presumely) developed democracy with this kind of problem.
Well, keep moving those goalposts and not responding to any of my actual points buddy.
Good luck!
Part of it is the perceived expectation of going against infantry with better body armor, and part of it is improved electronics. The M7 has a fire control computer built into the optic which should allow for easier engagements at extended range.
The Lebel rifle is notable for being the first rifle which used smokeless gunpowder. (This made the bullet much faster; but also didn't reveal the shooter's positions in the same way that blackpowder did). Smokeless was so good, that the rifle's development was rushed, in secrecy.
Aside from being smokeless, the Lebel had technology that was the state of the art at the time... but, within a few short years, was almost obsolete for its lack of rapid loading, and its awkwardly shaped cartridge.
I think the French were working on replacing their infantry rifles with the next-generation technology of repeating rifles, but were unable to do so before WWI.
Of course, at some point during the WW2 Eastern Campaign horse-traction became very important, especially for the Germans (hard to do logistics beyond the Don river when there’s no railway nearby).
I have a feeling that at some point in the future (when the oil will have run out, for example) we’ll get back to horse-assisted warfare.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idol_(stallion)#/media/File%3A...
As with everything engineering, it is a trade off.
Fascinating.
If others know of reputable sources that are cheaper, please link!
Everybody else I know who has them doesn't really use them; they're a backup thats on the rack because they saw it cheap at a show or got it from someone as a gift etc. "every long arm collector should have one"
Don't use it with regular 30-06 though, you need a special version with less powder (and thus less power).
Even Apple has joined this amazing naming convention.
Arguably more modern design, similar to M14 in features (adjustable gas regulator and detachable magazine).
https://photos.app.goo.gl/snByHzmLP8fHVA2X6
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.277_Fury
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoBWUs8poYU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
> He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism.
> After the war, Murphy embarked on a 21-year acting career. He played himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name,
I'd also like to shine a light on early efforts at an individual squad automatic weapon in the former Russian Empire, culminating in the 1915 Fedorov Avtomat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedorov_Avtomat
Ian McCollum did a Forgotten Weapons on this one as well
https://youtu.be/M7yhQXFKHMc?si=-nd4mNhsA-DHbqzr
The Russians had arguably the most combat experience with high volume of fire in defense, thanks to the experiences of the Russo-Japanese war, and what's more, they sought to capitalize on it, seeing it as working hand in hand with the geographic strengths of the Empire. The Revolution put a serious speed bump in that, obviously, as the most forward thinking military folks were not going to get on terribly well during the purges. Tukhachevsky says hello.
But if the Fedorov had just a slightly different timeline, we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1. As it was, we had to wait for the AVS-36 to make its appearance as the first selective fire battle rifle.
but there were plenty automatic rifle designs by the ww2, still most infantry used bolt action rifles, likely bottleneck was in reliable mass manufacturing.
1. Militaries generally feared their soldiers using too much ammo. Eg the magazine Lee Enfield was only supplied with one magazine, and early on was only intended to be fired single shot with the magazine used in an emergency.
2. Cost. You see all kinds of conversion proposals to update bolt action rifles for this reason. I believe the French actually updated flintlock rifles all the way up to breach loaders rather than buying new.
I guess without the purges, a whole lot changes. It's a huge wildcard in the alternate history.
Also, doctrine, logistics, the everything . . just didn't know what to do with a infantry platoon when everyone has a machine gun. It screwed up the machine . . and, let's be honest, the infantryman's small arm is a teensy tiny minority of where casualties come from. Even back in 1941. Far better to keep the big wheel turning with motorized transport, artillery, aircraft.