Felix,
Luty's designs did not need the use of a lathe or a mill, infact, with a bit of imagination and a bit more build time, I don't think they'd actually need any power tools at all, unless a kerosene or propane blow lamp is considered a power tool.
Given that information, what do you think the logic of the proposals for banning or licensing metal lathes and mills would be?
Who was the threat to home shops? Phil Luty, or the Bureaucrats?
Who would you blame if the ban came into being, and why?
I'm curious how you came to see one of his seized guns, was it a prop intended to scare you into a certain way of thinking, as your views were sought on how to ban home shops?
What Philip Luty set out to do, was to demonstrate the futility of the bans on law abiding citizens.
There are any amount of excellent books and academic papers looking at the statistical evidence of the futility and counter productivity of gun bans; Colin Greenwood's "Firearms Control" and later work by John Lott, Gary Kleck, Gary Mauser, Howard Nemerov, the now rather old US BOJS "Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales 1981-96"
All of those have had ZERO effect on Britain's long march to having a disarmed and defenceless law abiding citizenry faced with an ever better armed and less policed criminal fraternity, and I might add, an ever more unapproachable and paramilitarised police.
This was England, last summer. Land of hope and glory, mother of the Free? Check out who he's pointing it at and where his trigger finger is - a true "Only One" and I would argue, he's a far bigger threat to the life and liberty of an innocent person than anything Phil Luty ever did or planned to do. Also check out "Peel's Principles of Policing"
Without Phil Luty's example, arguments that a working submachinegun can be produced in around a week by virtually anyone with the inclination, were just supposition, they carried zero weight.
He demonstrated that it was possible, bans on legal ownership can not magically make guns go away (they can't even affect criminal's guns).
Banning or licensing of home workshops would be every bit as effective.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Image Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10583023
Peel's Principles of Policing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles