Twelve units total, due to the unique way in that the law is structured via the rather Orwellianly named “Firearm Owners’ Protection Act.” Only machine guns of any type manufactured before the law itself was enacted on May 19, 1986 are eligible for transfer and civilian ownership. That means that the available selection is not only fixed but shrinking, and every single transferable machine gun of any type instantly became an incredibly expensive collector’s item.
Yes. The ATF’s interpretation of this is that a “machine gun” is anything capable of firing more than one shot with one trigger pull. Making your trigger electrical or electronic does not circumvent this and, in fact, is how miniguns actually work – being motor driven.
They’re designed to be mounted on vehicles. The canard about them being man-portable is just that; it’s a fabrication made up out of the whole cloth for the Terminator/Predator movies. The “mini” in “minigun” came from the M134 which is chambered in 7.62×51mm, and is specifically a reference to it being smaller than the M61 “Vulcan” gun which was chambered in 20mm.
For 2, based on the Supreme Court’s recent very flawed ruling on bump stocks, I would assume you could make a mechanically actuated trigger that lifts itself up each round fired in such a way if you’re still putting pressure it will fire again. That’s how a bump stock works. I’m curious how far that could be pushed. Can you have a motor repeatedly pull the trigger? I assume probably not, but it’s not much different than a bump stock.
What you’re describing is a “reset trigger,” more or less, and they are indeed legal.
You could also just make a crank operated gun. Those are legal, too. The key is you have to keep turning the crank to keep firing. Your continued action is necessary.
There are cranks that you can add to an AR-15 pattern rifle to make them into a Gatling type operation. I think some are “universal”, but are designed to work on the AR.
When you say there are only 12, do you mean models or units?
If someone adds a motor to the hand crank does it become an (illegal) minigun?
Isn’t it weird that miniguns are the largest, heaviest types of gun possible.
For 2, based on the Supreme Court’s recent very flawed ruling on bump stocks, I would assume you could make a mechanically actuated trigger that lifts itself up each round fired in such a way if you’re still putting pressure it will fire again. That’s how a bump stock works. I’m curious how far that could be pushed. Can you have a motor repeatedly pull the trigger? I assume probably not, but it’s not much different than a bump stock.
What you’re describing is a “reset trigger,” more or less, and they are indeed legal.
You could also just make a crank operated gun. Those are legal, too. The key is you have to keep turning the crank to keep firing. Your continued action is necessary.
Forced reset triggers are illegal per ATF.
There are cranks that you can add to an AR-15 pattern rifle to make them into a Gatling type operation. I think some are “universal”, but are designed to work on the AR.