this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
250 points (100.0% liked)
A Comm for Historymemes
2147 readers
537 users here now
A place to share history memes!
Rules:
-
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
-
No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.
-
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
-
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.
Banner courtesy of @[email protected]
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe irrelevant but, is $40k a lot for a gun? I’m aware that there are many cheaper, but are there others in this range?
It’s way too much. The value in this case is so high because it’s an old historic firearm.
With modern production capabilities you can buy brand new rifles for ~1000€ or handguns for a couple or 100€s. They just shoot as straight, if not better. Modern assault rifles cost around 1500-5000€s the last time I checked. Without full auto mode though, because they are illegal for civilians here in Germany (no civilian needs an assault rifle IMO). But technically/price wise I imagine the difference to be negligible between the two variants.
But some weapons from that period were masterpieces. Back then they had more or less only manually operated machines that needed a lot of experience and skill. A Mauser 98 for example can still be bought as a new weapon today. A century old design built today costs 10000€ upwards.
Semi-automatic rifles are also illegal for civilians in Germany. You can buy a hunting rifle, if you have a license, but those are bolt action.
That’s not correct. You can just walk into a shop, show some papers, pay ~3,5k€ and buy a H&K MR308 or some other semi auto rifle if you like.
But getting this privilege costs quite a bit of work and money: You have to go to a hunting school, learn a lot of stuff, prove that you’ve really learned everything, show you are able to use weapons in a safe manner, prove your ability to shoot etc. Also you get screened by the police on a regular basis. And if you ever get in serious trouble with the law the chances are high you’ll lose everything.
So it’s not like in other countries, that basically having at least one finger is enough to operate a Gatling gun in your backyard 😉