• theyoyomaster@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    The spirit of the law is to ban machine guns, not set a subjective and arbitrary “firing rate” for semi automatics. You can achieve the same effect with any semi auto by just holding your beltloop. The only argument for it meeting the “spirit” of the law was that the NFA was a brazen attempt to skirt the 2nd Amendment and the goal was to ban as much as they could without it being thrown out, so this does sorta fit in with that, but not really.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      “At least… it wasn’t… a machine gun” - last words of a five year old killed by one of these.

      God bless America.

      • theyoyomaster@lemmy.worldOP
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        11 months ago

        I mean, they really aren’t used in crime in any appreciable way. Criminals just modify/use real machine guns. The law in question doesn’t even apply to felons, only legal gun owners can be charged with it.

        • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That’s not exactly true. There are quite a few Glocks with illegally-installed full-auto switches, making them illegal machine guns. Those are definitely used in crime, mostly gang violence I think, at least based on the news reports of seizures I’ve seen.

          • theyoyomaster@lemmy.worldOP
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            11 months ago

            That is exaxtly what I was referring to. FRTs aren’t what are turning up at crime scenes. When you’re committing murder, the majority of which is gang related, you don’t bother with expensive work around; you just put a switch in your Glock and call it a day. It also helps that felons and minors can’t be charged with a crime under the NFA for possession of a machine gun like a switched Glock.

            I’m not going to say that they have never been used in a crime because nothing is absolute, but they are definitely a niche and rare even outside the context of crimes. I would be very surprised if there has actually been a case of “a 5 year old” getting murdered with one like the other guy suggested. I feel like it’s both extremely unlikely statistically and something that would have generated massive media coverage.