Okay, I was mistaken. I personally have never been through the ATF 4 process. I've seen though that it's exclusively promoted, at least at the gun shops I've visited, for purchasing a silencer.
Is it that gun shops are leary of doing this for an automatic weapon? Or that they don't have an FFL for such weapons? Or that these ATF 4 requests have a high disapproval rate?
it’s supply and demand. The supply of transferable machine guns has been fixed since 1986 and no new guns have been allowed on the registry since then. Silencers, SBR and SBS are being made new every say
You have to get a local LE (either Chief of Police, or County Sheriff) sign off that you have clean record,and also send in FBI print cards. Full autos are available, but have previous posts have stated, no new ones have been made since 86. Last time I checked (few years ago) the cheapest ones were $2000 - $3000 Mac-10 and Mac-11, ARs were $8000-$10000 something like a Thompson were $25000 and up