[apl]

  > We do not sell automatic weapons without a whoooole lot
  > of paperwork and money

Availability of money has zero bearing on mental health and fitness to carry a weapon, so that criterion goes right out the window. What kind of paperwork is required? Does it entail thorough background checks etc.?

Erecting barriers isn't sufficient; we need the appropriate type of barrier.

[FelixP]

The short answer is that it is very hard to acquire fully-automatic weapons in the US today. Aside from the fact that anything available for sale to civilians will be both prohibitively expensive (1-2 orders of magnitude more expensive than a comparable semi-automatic weapon) and most likely an antique (only weapons manufactured before 1986 are available to civilians), the acquisition process itself is pretty arduous (e.g. FBI background investigation, signoff from head of local law enforcement, etc.). From my understanding, these weapons are almost never used to commit crimes.

The real danger are handguns - something like 3/4s of gun deaths are from handguns.