[_Jim]

including those automatic weapons we saw used ...

.. like by the gangs during prohibition?

No thanks.

[jonascord]

That is such a LAME statement. FDR didn't give a flying Ef for the guns the gangsters used. He was more concerned about disarming the Bonus Marchers, and tipping the balance against the WW1 veterans that were camping on his doorstep.

In 1934, a revolution in the US was about two weeks away. Gangsters and crime were a plausable diversion. Bonnie and Clyde, Dillenger, Floyd all preferred cut down BARs or shotguns. The .30-'06 could go thru a car, and shotguns are designed for close-in. Only Al Capone used Tommys to any degree, and he bought them over the counter. Paramilitaries like the IRA, and South American police, as well as anti-revolutionary forces like the Marine Corps went for the Thompson. Remember that Anton Cermak was shot right in FDR's lap, Huey Long, both with cheap pocket pistols, things were "edgy" in the 30's.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"...including those automatic weapons we saw used ...
like by the gangs during prohibition? No thanks."

During prohibition, automatic rifles were available without restriction. One could buy them at a hardware store or through the mail, and military surplus ones were cheap. yet outside of Hollywood, and one gang-on-gang incident, they didn't seem to cause the mayhem that is assumed today.

Would you have rather the gangs used handguns, or semi-auto rifles (they did, mostly)? Is there any evidence that more innocents died because full-auto was available?

The real fact is that what ended the violence of prohibition was the repeal of prohibition, not the National Firearms Act of 1934, which turned millions of lawful citizens into criminals based on an arbirtary and punitive tax.

[Trailerpark Badass]

.. like by the gangs during prohibition?

I'm sure "common sense" gun laws would stop them about as well as the 18th Amendment did.

[PatrioticAmerican]

".. like by the gangs during prohibition? "

You are absolutely right, _Jim. There is no need to have automatic weapons or weapons of assault weapon style to kill innocent people...the FBI has done it many times.

The FBI killed an innocent woman and her baby with a bolt action rifle. The FBI shot a kid in the face point blank using only one round. etc, etc, etc.

Get the picture? Your beloved Famous But Incompetents have killed using less than assault weapons.