Specious argument. Are you saying current Class III owners are causing today's gang crimes? Most of which are equally horrific as anything Pretty Boy Floyd may have perpetrated?
Prohibition caused an entire industry to go underground. Just as it does today. Don't blame the tools, blame the perps.
I don’t necessarily agree with it, but this is the argument that carries the day, as far as the feds are concerned. That is, I don’t think the SCOTUS will ever decide to let MGs out of the box for unlicensed civilian use.
On a more practical note, today’s problem goes beyond the classical arguments to something downright deadly. We are looking at a slow rolling civil war South of the border. They aren’t getting their weapons from our side, but they are getting them. And what our citizens are armed with, even as far as licensed MGs, doesn’t come close to that kind of weaponry if fighting rolls over onto our side.
That is, North of the border, we might soon be faced off with Mexican killers smuggling belt fed MGs and RPGs up here to party with us like Poncho Villa partied in Columbus, NM. These SOBs have killed over 18,000 Mexicans in the last four years, including over a thousand police and military. And they are indiscriminate in who they kill.
A great secret of Phoenix is that west of the city there is a desert dumping ground for murdered Mexicans. I had counted reports of over 35 killed before they just stopped reporting it. Didn’t want to make it look bad for tourism, and all. And that was before the war was going in earnest.
Often these days, the smugglers are accompanied by either Mexican military, or uniformed “Zetas”, ex-Mexican military, on US Humvees with M-60 MGs mounted on them. They will kill anyone who gets in their way. Border Patrol takes off when they see them.
Hell, we don’t just need unlicensed MGs. We need freaking CAS from Apache helicopters. Maybe some Strykers.
Now this being said, it is pretty ridiculous to require strict MG licensing. But Washington is still going to do it, because they are far, far away from the border.