From basement Owens to expensive handcrafted MACs

[gejohnston]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/22/1090464799535.html?oneclick=true
ancient history

to holy shit ten of these would pay off my house and then some.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/jeweller-angelos-koots-admits-to-making-submachine-guns-at-his-seven-hills-home-and-supplying-them-to-bikie-groups/story-fni0cx12-1226760983916

[ileus]

1. Looks like the man had talent...

should have went legit.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. "The only problem with an honest buck...

"...is they're so hard to make - the margins are too low, too many people are doin' it." - Yuri Orlov

[Eleanors38]

3. A curious off-spin of prohibitionism is it encourages the acquisition of more extreme things...

Cut off semi-auto pistols, say, and the underground shops & smugglers will go for something "better:" In for a dime, in for a dollar.

[dairydog91]

4. The ol' black market effect.

When the government makes a popular thing illegal, that means that customers will buy it through the black market. The thing about black marketeers is that they don't give a rat's ass about what is legal and what is illegal. Plus, the draconian "law and order" sentencing which is so loved by prohibitionists usually makes any finely tuned distinctions pretty much irrelevant. If the black marketeer is going to get sentenced to 100 years for selling the illegal item or 200 years for selling the super-illegal version, he may as well sell the super-illegal version and pocket the extra money which customers will pay.

[MicaelS]

5. We always said people would turn to making guns...

If they were banned. This just proves it.

If someone is going to go to prison anyway, why not make a full auto weapon with a silencer?