U.S. Guns, The Awful, Shocking Truth

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

35. What else whould be about?

I mean... was congress just supposed to "ban and confiscate" them?

Back in the 30's, they realized the 2A made all out bans a constitutionally-risky subject. So they made everyone register them with a $200 tax fee. This was more or less a defacto ban because (in 1932) $200 was a prohibitive amount of of money. In 1986, when $200 was more trivial when compared to the price of the gun, the Hughes Amendment ceased civillian additions to the Full Auto registration list... so basically only the ones that were already in the public and on the list were fair game to buy & sell.

The high price of full auto guns (ie: $3000 for a shitty $250 stamped sheet metal MAC-11 SMG) comes about because of the limited supply. Because new ones cannot be bought, only used ones exist and they become a collector's item. Like rare trading-cards for the gun crowd.