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Nope, it's not "incredibly" easy to convert a AR-15 to fully automatic.

Older receivers were easier but still required permanent modifications that made the receiver a "machine gun" in the eyes of the law, with no way to restore it, short of welding (and welding aluminium is tricky).

Modern receivers require machining and quite a number of different small parts to become fully automatic. Now, is that machining particularly difficult? No, but then again, if you have the tools and knowledge to do that, building a fully automatic firearm from scratch is "easy", as it's not particularly difficult to do without such knowledge and tools (the Sten only cost a quid or two to manufacture during WWII for a reason).

So, yes, as an adult you should be terrified as the difference between a semi auto receiver and non registered fully automatic one is ten years in jail and a $100,000 fine. As others have already mentioned, a fully automatic assault rifle isn't measurably more dangerous in trained hands than a semi auto one. The fully automatic fire is only really effective in the assault, to basically provide your own covering fire, and since that tactic a) haven't been popular with infantry forces in the past several decades, and b) is only useful against an armed and prepared opponent anyway (i.e. it's superflous/not applicable in most civilian settings), there isn't really much extra effect to be had from fully automatic capability. (The one semi recent such shooting we've had in Sweden with an assault rifle, the perpetrator didn't actually use the fully automatic capability much. In the more recent Norwegian case, the weapon didn't have any fully automatic capability, and that of course had no discernible bearing on the outcome.

That's of course not to say that its a good thing that crazy people have easy access to capable firearms, but whether your efforts should be aimed at the "capable firearm" or "crazy" that's not at all clear. We have very strict weapons regulations in Sweden, and that obviously haven't had one bit of effect on the recent spree of shootings; with fully automatic AK-47 type rifles that were fired on automatic in one case even. But again it's not clear that the automatic fire had any effect that the same volume of semi automatic fire wouldn't have had. It's as others have said, probably the other way around. (And in China petrol and knives have been used in lieu of a firearm, so there's no simple solution, like the people so singularly set on banning guns would have you believe.)

One other thing.

We already drawn the line at machine guns, grenades, rpgs (for the average person),

I wonder if you're actually aware of the details of regulatory regime for these - most people aren't. There isn't actually a ban on full-auto firearms or grenades on the federal level (some states have their own bans, but many don't).

Specifically for full-autos, there's a ban on importation or manufacture for civilian market, which means that supply is limited (only full-auto guns manufactured or imported before 1986 can be transferred to civilians), and so prices are very high - for example, here is an auction on a full-auto AR-15, starting at $18k; and on the cheaper side, here is WW2 Sten submachine gun, starting at $5k. However, if you have the cash, and if you don't live in a state that bans those, you could totally have it - all it takes is paying a $200 transfer tax to the feds (and waiting for a few months, because their processing queue for those transfer forms is very long).

There's another alternative, that involves taking a new semi-auto, and replacing a few parts in it with registered full-auto parts. For example, for AR-15, all you need is what's called a "drop-in auto sear" that is manufactured before 1986, and registered as a full auto firearm. It just goes into pretty much any AR-15 on the market, and makes it a legal machine gun. (For bonus points, have a look at what the drop-in auto sear is, and think about how trivial it is to manufacture - this is illegal, of course, but if you wanted to use it, I doubt you'd care.)

(There's another option, entirely illegal, but readily accessible. A regular mil-spec full auto trigger group and sear for an M16 is not considered a machinegun in and of itself, because it doesn't readily fit in a semi-auto AR-15 receiver. However, the only thing that is necessary to make it fit is drilling a single hole at the right spot, which is fairly trivial, given that receivers are aluminum - some are even polymer - and schematics and even jigs are readily available. Basically, it could be done with a cheap hand drill if desired. A complete kit with the trigger group, safety and sear costs around $100.)

Consequently, in 1995, 9 years after the manufacture/import ban, there were 175,000 registered legal full-auto firearms in civilian possession. This number is certainly lower today, because things wear out - but probably not by that much, because you can replace most worn-out parts that don't differ between full-auto and semi-auto models, and because people naturally are careful about such expensive guns.

Similarly, for grenade launchers and grenades, which are classified as "destructive devices" - you can own them, but you have to pay $200 for the transfer of both the launcher, and every grenade for it, so it gets expensive real quick. E.g. here is the standard military underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher - yours for $1500 + $200 transfer tax. Grenades are much harder to find, obviously, because they're a single-use thing by definition, but are also available given enough money. There are a few people in the country who own real tanks, complete with live guns and a stockpile of shells.

Lightning Link: http://www.quarterbore.com/nfa/lightninglink.html

$20? You're paying too much.

Still, though, why do we have these restrictions? Why is an 11-inch barrel legal in one instance and illegal in another?

You should stop looking for a legitimate rationale or intellectual honesty within the NFA: it's almost entirely arbitrary and enforcement is capricious. Essentially, the only valid functional classification within the NFA is that of a machine gun (ie. a firearm that fires two or more shots with a single pull of a trigger); however, even that led to the ATF issuing a machine gun classification to a shoelace.

Furthermore, do you know that suppressors (aka "silencers") are classified as Title II firearms according to the NFA? Suppressors aren't "Hollywood quiet" in real life. As a matter of fact, I believe we should propose gun safety legislation to allow "firearm mufflers" ownership to be unrestricted, just like in Finland, Norway, Poland, Italy, etc. Gun safety for hearing protection, of course.

Essentially, the NFA was the 1930's equivalent of the "assault weapons" ban: a ban on "scary looking things" and machine guns. However, at that time the intellectual dishonesty of the Wickard v. Filburn decision had yet to come to pass. Therefore, the gun control proponents felt constrained by the Constitution: they had no power to ban these weapons but they had the power to tax. Therefore, they set a fixed $200 tax on these "evil weapons" that was many times the value of the regulated items.

Now they don't bother with workarounds that. According to the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, even producing something and giving it away for free within a single state qualifies as "interstate commerce", which implies that Congress can regulate, restrict, or ban it.

So, you asked the correct question, but ultimately there is no valid rationale for the law for you to find. Your question also applies to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (and Feinstein's current proposed law): what valid reason exists to ban things simply due to cosmetics? Why are pistol grips on rifles "evil", but are okay on pistols? Why are adjustable rifle stocks evil?

It's farcical.

What possible public interest is served by making rifles legal, pistols legal, "short-barreled rifles" legal, but a Frankengun that's a rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches illegal?

Actually, all of those are legal provided you comply with the NFA.

Title I firearms (eg. rifes, pistols, shotguns) are the "regular" kind of firearms found in everyday stores and require no NFA tax stamps. Title II firearms are things like short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, machine guns, and "Any Other Weapons" (AOW); these require the tax stamp, approval from the federal government to own, etc.

The "Frankengun" you describe would be classified as an NFA short-barreled rifle (cf. this rifle) needing a stamp + federal approval, unless it lacked a stock, whereupon it would be classified as a regular handgun (cf. this pistol) with no restrictions, unless it had a vertical forward grip, whereupon it would be an AOW and need a stamp + federal approval.

BTW, you have to choose the firearm's classification *before* you make/obtain the firearm (see first link in my post).

Me, I want more of this. I want plans to 3D print a fully automatic weapon. Just to watch the heads explode at the realization that the genie is out of the bottle and ain't going back.

Do you realize that the only real obstacle to having an automatic weapon already is legal, not practical? The difference between a semi-auto and full-auto rifle is trivial from an engineering perspective. The Lightning Link is a tiny piece of stamped steel that reliably converts the AR-15 to full auto. It probably costs about $0.50 to manufacture in large quantities. You could literally make one in an afternoon from stuff you found around the house using only a Dremel. The only problem is that it's a federal offense to do so. Only Lightning Links registered with the ATF prior to May of 1986 are legally transferable for civilians. So there are only a few hundred in existence that are legal to own - and that's why a registered lightning link now costs approximately $8000 if you can find somebody selling one.

Which is why we try and find a more reliable source. Enter the service manual:
http://quarterbore.com/library/pdf_files/tm9-1005- 319-23.pdf

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The joke's on California though... After reading up on Calfornia SB 1152, which basically says they'll be forcing retailers to thumbprint ammo purchases and keep records for 2 years, ( based on Los Angeles city ordinance creeping its way across the entire republic... ) wondering if Texas will please invade the state, I'll lay down my arms, and should, my AR doesn't even have a detachable magazine, and sure thing the Texans would pack the real deal. CCW Permit in Cali? They don't even give those to COPS! Ohh but if you are the biggest anti-gun lobby ( Feinstien & Boxer ), you can and do have a CCW.

Hi-class gents club in California? No cigar(ette) smoking indoors, and in my hometown, you can't smoke OUTSIDE! Just around the corner in Santa Cruz, if you are a hairy armpit lumberjack female, you can walk around topless in public. But they give out drivers licenses to illegal aliens, and jam up the freeways with car pool lanes that nobody uses cutting utilization potential of the roads by %33, and let cats marry dogs in SF, a city that funds open pot fields.