
This is not borne out of reality; the old Soviet Union had a very
serious domestic handgun and submachinegun trade, guns that were
of commercial grade because they were produced in honest-to-goodness
machineshops. Why would all production have to be local; don't we
have a road system that is the envy of the world?

I seem to recall incidents in the past where Chinese entreprenaurs
attempted to smuggle AK-47s (semi-autos) into this country to
get around import number limitations (May have been Gunweek where
I read that years ago...)

Any person with high-school drafting skills and vocational school
machineshop training could produce a submachinegun. You talk about
the average person not being able get even a zip-gun; well now, think
of all that private CNC controlled machinery that is not being used for
3 shifts a day; do you think that if guns were being sold on the
black market for say, $150, an enterprising mechanical engineer
could be using that machinery to produce workable submachineguns
for sale? After all, GUNWEEK had an article and pictures on how BATF
was looking for the manufacturer of quite efficient silencers that
were of commercial quality and finish.