A new version of Sporting Clays that is beginning to find popularity, at least in the U.S.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/no8zlkltuct0l5x/Gnat%20Warfare%202-HD%201080p.mov?
Another deplorable example of the excesses of America’s out of control gun culture.
Well, maybe not, as I wish I could get on a range with those targets.
Especially with, say, a twin 20mm Oerlikon.
Or am I succumbing to some degree of gun excess? 
Not at all RS* it’s just good,clean fun, I imagine that in time the sport will make it’s way over to your neck o’ the Woods. Its not very different from Squad anti-aircraft training I went through in the Army. Practicing shooting down Migs with the basic battle rifle, only we used Daisy BB guns, aiming at a sheet metal cut out of a Mig 17 that slid along an inclined cable. I was surprised at how often pings were heard. I think that those who hunt Grouse would do better at it, owing to the small Bird’s ability to change directions in flight.
There are of course organized Machine Gun shoots where you could (for a small Fee) indulge your interest in shooting model planes with an Oerlikon. (You know you want to, 
)
I do not like to comment on the general enthusiasm for guns in the US. I am European - say no more. One thing - my understanding can extend, in certain situations, even up to the possession of semi-automatic assault rifles for target shooting (the lower recoil is easier to handle for the more lightly-built and the elderly, as I understand it). However, having watched with interest many episodes of the Discovery Channel’s docu-soaps, “Sons of Guns” and “American Guns” (often very informative for those of us whose knowledge of firearms is largely second-hand), I have to ask - what use do US enthusiasts have for rebuilt, fully automatic MG 34s ? Or functioning Oerlikon cannon ? Or vintage antitank guns restored to full working order ? Or “deconstructed” automatic rifles and machine-pistols restored to full working (deadly) order ? I know that State laws differ but … is the crafting or recrafting such dangerous “toys for boys” actually, generally legal over there … ? Yours from behind the Tin Duck, JR.
Excepting for Nuclear materials, there are (Federally speaking) no types of Firearms forbidden to qualified Citizens of the U.S. The businesses in those shows were Federally licensed to engage in that type of business, to do that kind of work, as well as general buying, and selling of said classed devices. Anything greater than .510 inches bore diameter is legally classed as Artillery, There are exceptions to this in shotguns with rifled Slug barrels, Black powder guns, and some antique, or reproductions of antique firearms, and Cannons. Artillery of any kind is classed as a Destructive Device, (non explosive)full auto firearms as well as outright Machine Guns, are referred to as Class III firearms. Both of these classes are regulated by both Federal, and State laws, and transferring one to private ownership in a lengthy process involving forms, police pictures, fingerprint cards, and 2 investigations. One by one’s local law enforcement agency, and signed off by the Chief officer, Chief of Police, County Sheriff, City, or County Attorney. After that certification, the paperwork, and other items are joined by a $200 tax Fee, and sent to the BATFE and then they classify all of the documents, and information, while the FBI do a very thorough investigation of the applicant. This process may take anywhere from two, to nine Months, and if the person is approved, then the papers are sent to the seller of the firearm, and the buyer may then, and only then take permanent possession of the firearm. There are also further regulations governing taking them across State lines, either for temporary, or permanent moves two forms, which have to be approved and returned before one can move the thing across a State line. They also require one to update even in State address changes. They do like to know just where all of these millions of firearms are. This is not a condition to which general sporting arms are subject, they can go where ever one wishes to take them. Try not to let the Media hype get to you though, it’s not the Old West here by any means, and it’s just a small segment of our society that do wrong using firearms, and we have places for them.
States may have their own additional laws regarding different types of firearms, some requiring a State, or County permit of some sort, and some few may even prohibit certain firearms. As to need, or use of class III, or Destructive devices by the people who own them (such as myself) This is a condition particular to the U.S. so we understand why people of other Nations may not understand it, but they are a Right here in the States, not a privilege, and there is no need of demonstrating a need, or reason to exercise a Right, one need only wish to do so. More later, have to dash…
Probably the same use I’d have for them if we could get them down here.
Major, major, MAJOR fun.
Clear fire lanes in light scrub with an M60 or shoot up old car bodies and sundry other junk on a tank range at dusk (as well as rounding up sheep) with an M60, L2A2 and .30 cal with tracer on a yippee shoot (i.e. fire off all the unit’s ammo this weekend or we’ll get less next year) like I did many moons ago and I think you’ll agree it is, no pun intended, a blast. (Or shoot up the electricity transformers some idiot erected on poles on the firing range which got the range officer seriously pissed off and for which I was unfairly blamed. Unfair because 1. I didn’t do it, and 2. If I had done it, there wouldn’t have been just a few holes leaking oil and shutting down the electricity supply but the whole f**king transformer would have been blown off the pole. Or maybe I would have just chopped down the pole with my M60. I had plenty of belts of ammo to more than just put a few piddly little holes in the transformer. ((Yes, I know who did it, but you don’t put your mates in, even though I thought it was pointless vandalism at the time, unlike the sound military training involved in rounding up sheep with tracer while trying not to wound or kill any. Wounding or killing them apparently was a useful contribution to the capitalist economy as the major landowning / grazing family which grazed its sheep on military land reputedly put out its near death woolly lawn mowers on the tank and artillery ranges in the hope they’d be killed and paid for at market prices for good sheep rather than the worthless near death ones actually wounded or killed. Similar capitalist practice to that employed by graziers when I worked in the shearing industry when they sold us aged mutton at lamb prices for our mess. But now I am digressing from my digression.)
However, I do agree that the quite dangerous weapons you mention shouldn’t be available to the general public down here.
Just to me, so I can have responsible fun.
Edit: This would be much more responsible than when I converted a semi-automatic .22 in my very early teens to a fully automatic, which revolved around filing the sear and some other forgotten modification. It did, however, teach me the useful lesson, which some years later I found was enshrined in Australian Army teaching, that spraying the countryside with unaimed automatic fire is no substitute for one well aimed round, whether at a rabbit or a man.
We don’t have any of that here on anything apart, essentially, from getting permits for single shot and bolt action .22 and shotguns for general use.
I keep my firearms licence current (which involves more than just paying the fee every time it comes up for renewal) but if I want to buy a firearm (I haven’t owned one for years) I need to get a separate permit.
However, if I wanted a gun in a hurry or didn’t want one on the government’s radar, I’d just buy one from the crooks who have plenty of them.
Who would probably be the same people supplying or involved in gun crime since our restrictions on gun laws following some massacres here in the 1990s got rid of most of the licensed risks for gun crime. Oddly enough, our governments which did a brilliant job of getting rid of guns it thought ordinary people shouldn’t have in case they became mass murderers have seen a massive increase in gun ownership and gun crime by criminals http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/gun-found-every-two-days-in-melbournes-red-zone-20150618-ghrak9.html (which also happens to cover our main jihadist areas - what a surprise!), much the same as our governments have seen an increase in drug traffic, use and crime while our governments have been busily restricting those activities.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of the gun control laws which have reduced our crimes by owners of legitimate guns, especially spontaneous intra-family shootings. But, like every half-way decent person here, I’m totally opposed to the criminals who have, use and supply guns, the same as I am to those who deal in dangerous illicit drugs. Only problem is that, as with tax and various other bullying and extortion by governments, the decent, law abiding people comply and have their activities restricted while the f**king criminals just steam on regardless in most cases.
Our prisons are full of incompetent criminals who, usually, do time on a revolving door basis. The really good criminals usually aren’t in gaol.
Much the same way that some seriously bad people who shouldn’t have guns usually aren’t in gaol or even on official radar.
So it’s just like tax laws. Governments slug the sitting ducks, but couldn’t recognise, let alone hit, a bird on the wing.
Yes, I have to admit it - I would love to have toys like this for the purposes of Major, major MAJOR fun. There might have been a small problem, insofar as a sufferer from chronic, serious depression and anxiety, I might at this stage have blown my own brains out had I access to a suitable gun. But at least I have no inclination to shoot anyone, or anything else (not even HERSELF in her worst moments). Problem is - not everybody is so averse to shooting their fellows. I hate to say this - but consistent experience in the US indicates that there is a cohort of the immature, the disturbed, followers of warped ideology and so on who are quite willing to shoot their fellows on sufficient “provocation”. And that is not to mention criminals. I can never understand the argument that the widespread availability of guns in the community makes everyone safer. In fact, the argument that giving decent citizens to opportunity to fire back when attacked is ridiculous. All that would produce (if reality actually worked that way) would be shootouts between decent/“indecent” parties likely to result in increased casualties, not least among the confused cops who would have to respond to such incidents.
Where I am, we enjoy one of the most restrictive regime of gun laws, even in Europe. And our cops are arguing to make them even more restrictive. This is, for me, an irritant, I have to admit. However, I would be a lot more irritated if, for example, I had to worry that in church, or at political meetings, or walking through my old College, or visiting a bank or … whatever, I could easily get into “situations” made worse by the common presence of firearms available to the immature, the loony, the fanatic and the crook. At least under current law, our crooks (Nidge and Company) have to smuggle their Glocks and Uzis along with their shipments of cocaine, and training for their use is very, very difficult. Mind you, this has its own drawbacks - amateur assassins. In a very recent incident in Dublin, a man dressed as a woman sashayed into a pigeon fancier’s club meeting, and killed a man by shooting him fifteen times, wounding one other. Only problem - the idiot had targeted the wrong person; he killed a perfectly “innocent” father of a family who had no connection with poisonous drugs trade. Five people are currently being questioned by the police in connection with this killing. Meanwhile, the real target of the incompetent “hit”, well aware of his target status, has made it publicly known that he and his gang will be making “counter-hits”. Familiar at all ? Chicago, Southside Chapter, 1928 perhaps ? Things are bad enough. Irritating as I may find it personally, I still favor strong laws restricting the availability of firearms in the civilian population.
Now I duck. Yours from the Firing Range, JR.
Hah!
Even Europeans like gun fun.
Hardly surprising, given that various parts of Europe have been shooting at each other with some sort of missile or firearem for most of recorded history, whether the traditional major French / British contests since 1066 or the much more recent traditional German/ French contests of the past 150 or so years or the more localised Spanish Civil War or the even more localised IRA assaults in Northern Ireland, Britain, Holland and Gibraltar, and so on.
This demonstrates commendable restraint. The counterpart of the endless feminist complaints, albeit generally justified, about domestic violence is a typically female failure to commend men shackled to rampant termagants for putting up with their bullying.
What we need is a society where nobody is averse to shooting their fellow, and everyone is armed equally.
I joke not.
If everyone was armed with, say, a .38 pistol and allowed to carry concealed with 50 extra rounds, and everybody knew that everybody else was so armed and equally not averse to shooting anyone else, where would that leave the muggers, armed robbers, rapists and all the other bullies who currently work on the basis that they have the advantage by, for example, bursting into a convenience store and waving a big knife around to terrify the bloke behind the counter? Their choices are to kill their victims if they can or, more probably as these characters are essentially cowards and bullies, not get into a situation where they’re going to come off worse with a few .38 slugs in their chests.
Me neither.
But, as outlined above, universal, as distinct from merely widespread, carrying of guns could make everybody safer.
At worst, at least I get to shoot the thug trying to rob me unless he sneaks up and kills me first.
Only if people who don’t know how to use guns have them. Which, presently, is most criminals. Most of our local arseholes can’t execute a simple drive by shooting successfully, i.e. by hitting the house consistently, and they have no idea about weapon maintenance which is why criminals have an embarrassingly high rate of misfires and jams in normally reliable weapons and a distressingly low success rate in attempted executions of other criminals.
So do I, in theory.
But as the laws don’t stop guns getting into the hands people who will use them against decent and defenceless people, I think there is an equal argument, which I’ve outlined above, for making sure that everyone has a gun for unrestricted use against thugs etc to redress the current imbalance where, in my country anyway, the criminals have a lot more guns, and more serious guns as in machine guns, than the decent average citizens.
There are, of course, interesting questions such as the age at which everyone gets a gun (about 14 to 15 years old seems ideal to me, as the stupidity and ready recourse to violence around those ages and in the next few years should thin out the population of people unduly disposed to use their firearms and, among other things, reduce the burden on our education system, and society, in subsequent years of dealing with these arseholes and, alas, their no doubt rather better but incapacitated or dead victims).
You have PM.
In all 50 States one can get a concealed carry permit, there is class time, as well as range time to prove one’s proficiency. The class time is training on legal responsibilities of carriers, and the specifics on what is, and is not a condition authorizing use of deadly force. Penalties for misuse of permit firearms are more severe than otherwise. (especially here in the Tennessee, where there is no tolerance for gun crime)
some States allow what is called open carry, where as long as the firearm is fully visible at all times, one may carry it in public without a permit. Personally, I do not care for open carry, as there is no means of checking to see if the person carrying is legally allowed to possess a firearm. Simply open carrying is not grounds for a police stop in States allowing such public carriage. At least with the permit, the people are vetted, and on record. You go to the division of motor vehicles to get the permit after passing the course requirements.
Presently in the U.S. a person must be 18+ years of age to purchase long arms, and ammunition for same, and 21 yrs for handguns, and ammunition. 21 also for purchase of a Class III, or Destructive device. This assuming someone that young can afford such firearms, as prices for them have gone through the roof in the past decade or so. A venerable Thompson M1-A1 in good + condition was about $2,000 in the 80’s, and now go for nearly 10 times that. My trusty old Lahti cost $300 in 1979, and now averages between $7,000-$8,000. Then there is the transfer costs, and care, and feeding.
My most used long guns are all bolt actions, and great fun at the range. I do own a Colt Defense M-4, partly because the system is what we used back when, and also because it’s part of being a responsible citizen.