Ehh, im not sure I agree that arms production is that difficult. Yes you need machine shop equipment, but machine equipment from any time in the last 75 years would be more than capable and there is plenty of unused equipment sitting around and new cheap chinese equipment you can buy that would be workable even if it isn't great. Even the US where guns are about as legal as they get, there are illegal gun manufacturing shops busted basically every week. Half of them are probably just making trash that is super easy to do like giggle switches and mostly publicized as pure propaganda for police departments, but that still leaves a significant number of people producing working illegal arms even in a market where guns are dirt cheap.
And now you got an entire online community dedicated to 3d printing firearms and sharing models and designs, and it is REALLY easy to go from 3d printer design into sintered or casted metal parts that require little to no actual machining to operate.
In my opinion, 99% of the barrier to obtaining firearms in this era is purely a lack of desire and them already being so cheap to get. It doesn't require a craftsman of 20 years to produce working fierarms nor even specialized or unusual equipment or materials. But even if someone did order more specialized machinery from China to produce say cold hammered barrels at a factory scale, a chinese tool making company isn't going to think twice about shipping it and taking the money, and if the producers can run it for just a few months it would have paid for itself.
This is a multi billion dollar ecosystem with no regulators but themselves. Basically state level capacity. Guns are small time for them if they decided to enter the arms market fully. My biggest guess is that the threat of having the biggest military in the world as their neighbor is the only thing stopping them (missiles are much bigger priorities than narcotics)
There’s making a gun and making weapons. I’m sure they are capable of making AR style rifles. Can they manufacture mortars? RPGs? IEDs and Landmines and drones are about as sophisticated as they can get.
And now you got an entire online community dedicated to 3d printing firearms and sharing models and designs, and it is REALLY easy to go from 3d printer design into sintered or casted metal parts that require little to no actual machining to operate.
In my opinion, 99% of the barrier to obtaining firearms in this era is purely a lack of desire and them already being so cheap to get. It doesn't require a craftsman of 20 years to produce working fierarms nor even specialized or unusual equipment or materials. But even if someone did order more specialized machinery from China to produce say cold hammered barrels at a factory scale, a chinese tool making company isn't going to think twice about shipping it and taking the money, and if the producers can run it for just a few months it would have paid for itself.