TV shows continually illustrate criminals using machine guns. In this story that spans an episode of two separate CBS shows on the FBI, white supremacists kidnap a school bus full of young children using AR-15s (FBI S2 E18 and FBI Most Wanted S1 E9 March 24, 2020). The show explicitly states that these are the types of guns used by the military. There is also a reference to the criminals having AK-47s. This episode goes well beyond guns, with ICE agents being the bad guys, grabbing the hero’s daughter who is a US citizen, and who was in league with white supremacists.
On TV shows, machine guns always seem to be the weapons of choice for bad guys when they get in shootouts with police. Some hyperbole is to be expected on television, but the level of exaggeration has become pretty over-the-top. In real life, criminals use machine guns so rarely that a 2016 survey of prison inmates only broke down the numbers for uses of handguns, rifles, and shotguns. The survey did not even mention fully automatic weapons. Since 1934, there was only one possible known use ever of a civilian using a machine gun in a murder. And even before 1934, they were very rare.
The first five segments here are from ABC’s The Rookie, one episode from NBC’s Chicago PD, and two episodes from CBS’s Magnum PI. Police are the targets in all but one of the below episodes from the 2018-19 Season (the single exception is the first episode of Magnum PI). This list is probably very far from exhaustive. One question is where do these television show writers think that the criminals are obtaining all these machine guns, certainly not at your local gun store. Here is a video on Hollywood’s bias against guns.