Reply #89: Prohibition and drugs have nothing to do with it. [View All]

You can make booze in a bathtub. People did. You can make drugs in a garbage can. People do. If people can really make guns from scratch in a machine shop (not counting kits, which should also be illegal), they'll be cheap, crummy guns, not one-eighth as dangerous as the high-powered and automatic weapons you can get today (or easily convert). Bathtub gin was more dangerous than commercial gin. Machine shop guns would be less dangerous than manufactured guns. Do the math.

As far as the black market and smuggling is concerned, the reason those operations defy law enforcement is because they are so immensely profitable. There is a huge and constant demand for drugs and alcohol, because people are addicted to them. You can smuggle a million dollars worth of cocaine in a small briefcase. When you can smuggle a million dollars worth of guns and ammo in a small briefcase, the gun problem in this country will be pretty much solved.