Ownership of Fully Automatic Firearms.

Modern Fully-Automatic Machine Gun

A fully automatic is defined as, "An automatic firearm continuously fires rounds as long as the trigger is pressed or held and there is ammunition in the magazine/chamber" This differs from a semi-automatic firearm which can fire one round per trigger pull but does not need to be manually reloaded after each round is fired. In the United States, it is common for a citizen to own a semi-automatic weapon such as an AR-15 and a variety of handguns. However, contrary to popular belief, it is incredibly difficult to get a permit for the ownership of a fully-automatic weapon. According to a variety of news sources and journals, fully automatic weapons have been heavily regulated since the 1930's when the Tommy Gun was being used violently by gangs. According to Andrea Miller in her ABC News research article, "What to know about machine gun laws in the US", In 1986, regulations of machine guns were hardened since the original regulations of Tommy Guns back in 1934 did not stop much crime. The new laws imposed regulations to the manufacturing of fully-automatic weapons to allow only government certified manufacturers to produce fully-automatic weapons and banned possession of new fully-automatic firearms to the public. This ban is still in affect. 

Tommy Gun