It was also the inspiration for Heat’s shootout!
The North Hollywood robbers had illegally modified their weapons to enable full-auto fire. Since well before 1997, modifying guns like this has been a federal felony that gets you a ten-year prison sentence. That's a prohibition that predates the Assault Weapon Ban, which had nothing to do with full-auto weapons.
The AWB has since expired, and doing your own full-auto conversion will still get you ten years in the slammer. You can buy a full-auto weapon, but only after an extensive background check and approval of your local sheriff, if your state allows it, and only if the weapon was manufactured before 1986.
The movie Heat, of course, also had its robbers using full-auto. Incidentally, the movie came out before the North Hollywood robbery; many people have actually blamed the movie for inspiring the real robbers, one of whom owned a copy of the movie!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout
Example:
These are legal somehow in USA? Can you please trace how and prove it with links?
~~The Assault Weapons Ban only applied to new guns.~~ ATF policy change, not AWB. Existing guns were grandfathered in.
Guns have many interchangeable parts. The part of the gun that the government considers to be the "legal definition" is a part called the lower receiver. You can change almost anything about a gun as long as you keep the lower receiver and comply with any other laws.
So if you buy an old MAC-10 lower receiver that was manufactured before the new ATF policy, and add an adapter [1] that allows it to be combined with the non-lower parts from an AR-15, you can create a completely legal Frankenrifle with mostly new parts!
This isn't even the craziest thing you can do with gun loopholes in the USA. "Pistol braces" [2], originally made for war veterans with amputations to shoot small rifles, have pretty much obsoleted restrictions on short-barreled rifles. "Ghost guns" [3], i.e. lower receivers that have no serial number and do not appear in any database, are easily made by anyone with access to CNC tools (including a few hours rental for a few hundred bucks). 3D printed pistols are becoming a thing [4], although they are not very durable.
1: https://aandsconversions.com/2018/11/25/the-next-big-thing-f...
2: https://www.sb-tactical.com/product-category/brace/
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_gun
4: https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/jzik44/magdump_monday...
You are right, it was mostly a ban based on superficial features like the much feared bayonet mount. But there were two bans based on magazine capacity.
It did ban magazines with more than 10 round capacity. It also banned semi-automatic shotguns with more than 5 round fixed magazine or a detachable magazine when in combination with folding stock or pistol grip.
In 1986, they stopped accepting new registrations for automatic guns. So there's a fixed supply of legal automatic firearms that normal people can own.
Read more here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act#:~:tex....
Another nit pick: the approval is not some sort of interview or questionnaire as of why you need it. There is so-called ATF stamp (i.e. $200 for silencer) than you need to submit altogether with FBI fingerprints. These days mojority of ATF applications is registered thru "trust", instead of an individual. This creates all sorts of issues for LE in case they want to run extra background on you etc. So 90-something % of people chose $50 ATF "trust" that Sheriff cannot technically decline over the other option which is petition as individual and getting close to 100% chance of denial. The biggest hurdle is not some LE not liking your tattoo, its that ATF has a year long backlog. So you pay for your FA $25,000 today but its only delivered to your local licensed gun store, and they won't let you pick it up until ATF sends them document with green light. That take sup to 1.5 year these days. You can come and touch it and take few photos but they will not allow you to load it of course, or to take it out (including shooting range).
Finally, as OT mentions fixed supply, a so-called lower receiver of a fully automatic gun, a piece of metal not much bigger than a door handle (which does not even have any fancy engineering) is literally the most expensive piece of metal that you can buy on American soil. Some examples in extremely good shape go for $35,000 these days (check gunbroker dot com)
Why do people want them? Is it just a hobby, or is there some utility I'm unware of?
Outside of the military they have no utility whatsoever.
https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/firearms/forms...
"De facto banned" for an ordinary citizen is an accurate way to describe it.
* You're a Hollywood armorer
* You develop or manufacture automatic firearms for government agencies
* You're a security contractor who has been provided automatic firearms as part of a federal contract
* You're a major museum displaying militaria
I have zero affiliation with this site, they just have a large, dynamic inventory so it makes for fun browsing for me.
0- https://www.impactguns.com/machine-guns/
1- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_II_weapons#Any_other_w...
Be warned that they cost as much as a car.
A Bushmaster XM-15 converted illegally to fire full auto with two 100-round Beta Magazines
A Heckler & Koch HK-91 semi automatic rifle with several 30-round magazines[38]
A Beretta 92FS Inox with several magazines
Three different civilian-model AK-47 style rifles converted illegally to fire full auto with several 75- to 100-round drum magazines, as well as 30-round box magazines.Unless MGs are treated differently than other NFA items in some way I'm unaware of, the new (2016) ATF rules no longer require CLEO (chief law enforcement officer) approval as part of the process, only notification.
Of course certain state laws still have a similar approval restriction in place to comply with state law, but local law enforcement can no longer hamstring the actual NFA process.
>The final rule affects the NFA regulations by:
>...
>...requiring that a copy of all applications to make or transfer a firearm, and the specified form for responsible persons (5320.23), be forwarded to the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) of the locality in which the applicant/transferee or responsible person resides; and
>eliminating the requirement for certification signed by the CLEO.
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/final-rule-41f-bac...
Only semi-correct, they had full-auto AK47s and extended mags, all of which at the time could be purchased and legally owned with a special stamp by the ATF [0]. As a child a friend's father had one he would bring out on new years to only short lived amusement in the neighborhood as we all lived in a densely populated suburb near a major freeway.
But without them, yes, you couldn't just go to a store and buy one off the shelf.
0: https://legalbeagle.com/8731203-class-three-stamp-through-at...
Converting your own semi-auto to full auto is in now way legal then nor now.
Full auto guns are basically a rich man's toy and have been since well before new ones were outlawed in 1986. The practicality mostly isn't there for criminal use and they're real expensive to feed.
tl;dr - you don't "have to register" them, because by definition the ones that are legal are already registered. In '86 they stopped allowing new registrations for automatic weapons, but existing registered weapons were grandfathered in. US gun law considers the lower receiver to bear the "identity" of the weapon, so some pretty extensive modification can occur while it technically stays "the same gun" in a Ship of Theseus fashion.
The North Hollywood shootout was in 1997, Heat came out two years prior.