Reply #96: I will try to explain.

[gorfle]

I get hunting, protection, target shooting ... I do not get machine guns, automatics, or even a lot of the semi-autos.

Your criticism sounds valid and not hysterical, so I will give you a stab at a reasonable answer.

I don't own any fully automatic guns. I would like to, but I can't afford either the firearm or the ammunition it would consume. Some day I would like to build a full-scale functional replica of a model 1862 Gatling Gun - they fired reloadable black powder chambers and so should be reasonably inexpensive to shoot.

Why would I like to own them? For the same reason I enjoy owning all of my firearms.

Firstly, being a mechanically inclined person, I find them interesting from a mechanical perspective. They are very intricate and precise yet incredibly rugged - especially military weapons. They must function in the most severe of conditions and must do so very reliably and accurately. From an engineering perspective they are ingenious.

From an aesthetic perspective they are equally interesting. Most firearms, with the exception of military firearms, though some enjoy the military aesthetic, are highly artistic. The highest examples of firearm craftsmanship include gold and silver inlay, exquisite engraving, and sometimes even mounted jewels. Even the most basic civilian firearms often have carefully selected and crafted wood stocks that blend smoothly into the metal components, and the metal components are brilliantly polished and finished. They exude careful craftsmanship and pride in work. Seeing such attention to detail and craftsmanship built into a machine is very neat. Why it's neat is hard to explain, but it is neat in the same way that the extra craftsmanship and detail put into a Corvette is cooler than the craftsmanship and detail put into, say, a Yugo. The elegant combination of artistic craftsmanship and artwork is cool.

From a functional perspective I enjoy the challenge of shooting, and different weapons present different challenges. I enjoy shooting my target .22 pistol as it is highly accurate with minimal recoil and so one can really do some precision target shooting, and cheaply, too. I enjoy shooting my .44 magnum pistol as it has a tremendous recoil and it is very challenging to mentally make yourself stand steady and fire when your brain knows a huge bang is about to happen. It takes a lot of self-control to do and I must say I'm pretty good at it. :)

And yes, there is some machismo to it, too. It's fun to go to the shooting range and shoot my semi-automatic AK-47 variant rapid-fire into a target. It's hard not to feel a little "bad-ass" when you're firing an "assault rifle" even if it is a semi-automatic version, just like I felt more bad-ass driving down the road in my Mustang GT (I miss that car!) than in our minivan. Yeah, it's a cheap thrill but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a thrill. I imagine shooting a machine gun would be similarly thrilling. Unfortunately even my AK-variant when loaded with a full 30-round magazine holds about $6 worth of ammunition at today's prices. A true fully-automatic AK would burn through that in about 3 seconds. As it is when I go to the range for an afternoon I usually go through about $90 worth of ammo, and as such I only get to go about once every 3 months, as that's all I can afford. Even if I could afford the $5000+ for a used machine gun, $100 worth of ammo would get you about 16 30-round magazines of ammo, which you could burn through in less than 5 minutes easily. For $100 I want a whole afternoon of entertainment every few months, not five minutes.

Finally I'd just like to say that I use all of my firearms for hunting, protection, and target shooting. If I had a machine gun I'd only shoot it on very rare occasion at a shooting range for "target" shooting, which is kind of funny because machine guns are really not designed for precision targeting - they are suppression weapons. I'd never try to use one for hunting, as it would be far to inaccurate past the first shot and consequently it would be impossible to fire safely. Likewise it would be completely unsuitable for home defense or concealed carry. About the only real use for owning a machine gun is pride of ownership and possibly investment. You might think it's a silly thing to be prideful of owning but there are lots of things people own that I think are silly, like Yachts or jewelry.

These people really represent less than 10% of the population, they just have a really loud voice in the NRA and a lot of stupid stupid men who are afraid that if they oppose them they'll be called cowards.

There are approximately 40-80 million firearm owners in the United States, with a population of about 300 million. That works out to 13% - 27% of the population. When you consider that overall voter turnout for Presidential elections runs only 50% - 65% ( http://elections.gmu.edu/turnout_rates_graph.htm ), and when you consider that firearm owners are typically very motivated voters, you can see why legislators highly respect the NRA voting block.

This is, in my view, precisely the way our government is supposed to work. People with common interests work together to make sure they are represented. Just like I support the right of workers to form Unions to secure better representation than they could individually, I support the right of voters to do similarly.