I'm not terribly surprised. Submachine guns, being pure blow back firearms, are probably among the simplest to make with the most difficult component in the manufacturing process being the barrel. Even the bolt would be relatively simple given its fixed firing pin, provided it's been appropriately heat-treated, and everything else is just a matter of springs, stamping (or pipes), or welding.
I agree with you, though. "Danger-hyping" seems to ignore the fact that in nearly all cases, many of these weapons aren't new technologies. Modern techniques and tools may make it easier (or faster), and certainly new technologies (like drones) expose us to additional risks (but RC aircraft have been around for decades). It's a trade off we'll always face.
Exactly. See my post about making guns by hand. As a 12 year old boy I was making gunpowder from drugstore items and launching rockets made from rolled-up newspaper.
This isn't really a significant development. Building serviceable firearms isn't especially difficult and hasn't been for a long time. See http://improguns.blogspot.com/ for some examples.
Ammunition is also fairly easy to make. Anyone with enough knowledge of chemistry to manufacture methamphetamine could also manufacture viable propellants and priming compounds. Casting and machining brass for cartridge cases is fairly easy. Casting lead bullets is even easier.
There's no practical way to keep this stuff out of the hands of criminals if there's a demand for it.
Professional, singular. All it really takes is one person with an ideological axe to grind and a moderate amount of skill, and you have instructions that others can use to turn off-the-shelf components into weapons.
It's happened before. P.A. Luty wanted to make a point about British gun control laws, so he built a submachine gun out of ordinary hardware store parts and wrote a book ("Expedient Homemade Firearms") containing detailed instructions. He got jailed over making these weapons, of course, but the point stands.
You say that everything but primer could be relatively easily made by an individual in a decentralized way. Do you mean a skilled machinist with excellent tools? I would have imagined that making a reliable reusable weapon required a number of small parts with rigid tolerances. Is that not the case?
If the guns themselves become easy to manufacture I think that there will be more emphasis on controlling and tracing ammunition, including primers and propellants for handloading. Making stable, uniform smokeless propellant starting from raw cellulose and over-the-counter chemicals is a huge investment of skill and effort. Making black powder is more tractable but still a lot of effort.
Most aspiring firearm enthusiasts who are not criminals could get legally permitted in Europe if they were willing to invest as much effort as it would take to make their own guns and ammunition from scratch. Most criminals who want guns just as crime accessories don't have the discipline and drive to make weapons that they can't buy. (Thank goodness, or homemade bombs with wireless command detonation would already be common instruments in areas with gang rivalry.)
Given the collapse of civilization, I'm confident that I could be producing basic automatic weapons (submachineguns) in less than a month. Six months on the outside before I could be turning out high-quality automatic rifles. The hardest part would be the barrel rifling, but even that is doable. This is without electricity, of course.
From scratch, as in from bar stock and other raw metals? Yes, very easily, in fact. It's technology that is well over 200 years old. Machine guns are 100+ years old.
Making primers and smokeless powder might be tricky, but the mechanical stuff is easy peasy.
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