It’s ‘pop quiz on guns’ time!
U.S. Army photo | Wikimedia Commons
Okay, folks, we’re going to have a little fun today, with a couple of questions that relate to machine guns.
We’re talking full-auto here, not semi-automatic deer rifles and such. In other words, we’re talking about REAL assault rifles, registered with the feds.
Ready for the first question?
1. Which state in the United States has the most registered machine guns?
2. Which state in the United States has the most registered machine guns per capita?
3. Which state in the United States has the most registered “destructive devices?” (A destructive device is defined as: “Any explosive, incendiary or poison gas bomb, grenade, mine or rocket having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce . . .”).
The answers, and a little more, are after the jump.
1. VIRGINIA! — 30,200
2. VIRGINIA! –There’s one machine gun for every 268 people in the commonwealth — or, going strictly by the averages, 366 in Roanoke.
3. CALIFORNIA! — 212,800. (Virginia was #2, with 161,841)
These and many other fascinating facts are at your fingertips in Firearms Commerce in the U.S. — Annual Statistical Update (2012) from the ATF.(pdf)
Read it now, before the NRA forces Congress to pass a law forbidding the feds to collect such information!
September 26, 2012 - 5:44 PM
So, Dan, how many of those have been used in a crime?
If you can’t document a problem, what’s the issue?
I love Virginia.
Casey, Your anti-gun stance is apparent and you quoted the wrong section of the ‘explosive device’ section. Here is it for you:
(b) any type of weapon
(other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Director finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting
purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an
explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter;
You do realize that Virginia has one of the largest ‘War of Northern Aggression’ reenactment communities (you might know it as our Civil War)? The typical bore of the rifles used by them is .58 caliber and .69 caliber, both of which are over one-half inch in diameter.
Any full-auto ‘machine gun’ requires a federal permit to own. These items are in collections though most are likely fully functional. Get your facts straight instead of spewing propaganda.
this indicates that the majority of the citizens of Virginia are able to pass the strict requirements to possess a machine gun…also that the owners of them obey the law and register them….also there are a lot of serious gun collectors in the commonwealth….a serious collection is not complete if it doesn’t include a machine gun…..guns do not kill…..people do
Dave Hicks,
Who said there’s an issue? It’s interesting from a state-pride perspective. We’re No. 1, ya know!
Yay Virginia!
Alright folks, let’s get those AOW registrations up. We can’t be second to California on this.
I agree with Jack. This is a fine place we call home. Reading this reaffirms it.
Comment by Dan Casey — September 26, 2012 @ 8:54 pm
Yup.
How about a new official bumper-sticker, “Virginia is for lovers…of things that go rat-a-tat-tat & BOOM!”
We need to strive to catch up on the Boom part, however.
YEA!!!! That’s why I LOVE living in Virginia! We ARE still the land of the free and the home of the brave, aren’t we?
We have no chance of taking over CA in number three. They have to register a lot of special effects for movies under that designation.
Unless we start buying .58 cal muzzleloaders in lots of 1,000, of course.
Who’s in?
Those moron Virginians. Spending thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars, going to the G and saying “mother may I?”, waiting around for six to eight months for the BGC to clear, getting a veritable colonoscopy from the federal government (they go to your relatives, your employers, past AND present, anywhere they think that they can dig up dirt, and some of the questions are ridiculous), and for what? To own a buzz gun? Anyone with half a brain would just go to Mexico, where any cop or soldier will sell you one, on the spot, for the cost of a blu-ray.
Those law abiding citizens are SUCH an embarrassment.
Pretty sad that folks are so proud of owning a ton of devices made for no reason other than to kill a whole bunch of people efficiently.
RobertSadtler, are you being sarcastic?
Good point Robert! Why worry about Virginia to get those things. Eric Holder had some but gave them to the Mexican Drug Cartel. One of Obama’s finest Cabinet members probably has some stored in his garage.
Kristen, we desperately need a sarcasm font to distinguish the ambiguously thin-spread from the SPF 500-thick obvious.
JohnW, years ago on AOL I posted in a chatroom how “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”. I can’t tell you how many people told me I was going to hell for it.
We DO need a sarcasm font. Maybe even a satire font.
The best thing about our Virginia borders in all directions is that we are all free to pack our belongings and move anywhere we choose if we don’t like where we are presently residing. Help yourself if you fall into this catagory.
The difference between satire and sarcasm is the difference between surgery and butchery. — Edward Nichols
I’d be happy with one font to cover irony, tongue-in-cheek, parody, satire, sarcasm and another form of “I’m not being literally serious” or “there is a discrepancy between what I’m saying and what is meant.
For anyone unclear on the subject, I was being ruthlessly sarcastic, except for two things.
A legally purchased machine gun will cost a minimum of $4500 for a Mac-10, a genuine, honest to God P.O.S. The next cheapest would be an AK-47, which costs around $7000-$8000. The prices increase radically from there.
However, in Mexico (or any other Latin American country for that matter) a cop or soldier will gladly sell you a machine gun for the cost of a high end blu-ray player.
But hey, let’s get in a lather about people bending over backward to follow the law.
Still waiting for someone to document an illegal shooting involving one of those legally-owned 30,200 full-auto and/or burst-fire firearms.
So far nothing but crickets.
Come on, gdad. Tell us all about all the incidents of killing “a whole bunch of people efficiently” with one of those 30,200.
If you can’t, think there might be another reason for owning one?
@Dave Hicks,
gdad won’t find one. Generally speaking, I’d say a fully automatic weapon is actually a less efficient way to kill than with a semi-automatic weapon.
Sure, full auto is great for suppressing fire, but that’s about all it is good for.