• Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    There’s at least 80,000$ worth of guns in this picture. That’s 20,000$ more than the yearly wage of an average American.

    40k For the M60

    10k For the UZI

    10k For the Thompson

    10k For the G3

    10k For the FAL

    That’s not counting any licensing fees, shipping, the two guns on the left that I can’t tell if they’re “cheap” AR15s or expensive military issue rifles, and would be if they bought them for the cheapest bidding price.

    • TehBamski@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is Thomas Massie’s family. He is currently a Congressman of Kentucky’s 4th congressional district. Where the median household income is $75, 907. Each Congressional person earns $174,000 /y unless posted otherwise.

      He comes from a business background in electrical engineering and holds/held 24 patents. Back in 1996, SensAble Technoolgies, Inc., raised $32 million of venture capital. The business was sold back in 2003.

      So while his photo of his family holding guns for their Christmas photo is weird as fuck, this dude is rolling in the money.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yep, full auto firearms are for the rich, connected, and powerful only. They are not for poor plebes like us.

      I cannot say for sure, but I would suspect, if they are actually full auto, he personally owns none of those guns. But rather a private group, a type of corporation, actually owns and maintains, and insures all of the these weapons. It’s far cheaper and easier to maintain the collection that way.

      But almost every one of the pictured firearms are actually available as street legal semi-auto firearms. A lot of FALs were made semi-auto from the start. Semi auto Thompson guns where made by re-welding cut receivers from parts kits and adding semi-auto trigger groups. New semi auto Uzi’s were imported into the US and other nations as sporting arms, (and might still be). While I haven’t checked lately, new semi-auto G3s can still be had. But they are stupid expensive. I think I have heard of a few M60’s built from parts kits in semi auto. But I have never bothered to try and verify their existence. The AR’s are most likely cheap as chips semi autos.

      The photo IS a completely stupid thing and Massie is a fool in all things. But enough money makes right these days. (Pun intended) And he has enough money to be a fool.

    • steal_your_face
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      4 months ago

      Which gun is which? Specifically what does the mom have?

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          Dork on the right looks to have an M16A1, its got the Vietnam era handguard.

          Could be an original, reproduction, or a commercial AR 15 modified to look like the original M16.

          • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Could be an original, reproduction, or a commercial AR 15 modified to look like the original M16.

            Yep, that’s why I didn’t want to specifically call it one.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      WTF with those prices? Isn’t retail on an Uzi like $900? I guess because you can’t find them due to their illegal status without tens of thousands of dollars worth of paperwork and background checks?

      • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I guess because you can’t find them due to their illegal status without tens of thousands of dollars worth of paperwork and background checks?

        Yep, that’s driven up prices for NFA items considerably. You’ll never find an NFA transferable automatic gun in the US for 900$ or lower.

    • Wooki@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      For the record I find it weird to have a family photo with guns outright. That said get a better argument, like that one.

      they have multiple familys let alone multiple people. Having a hard time counting are we? Let alone the assumptions they bought them in one year and all brand new which I doubt.

      How many more straws would you like to hold?