No, not necessarily. I've seen and touched some personally. As I understand it, a live fire cannon or mortar, etc. must be registered as a Destructive Device in the USA. There are collectors who have every thing from 37mm in the M3/M5/M8 to Shermans to German WW2 stuff and so on. On the US 37mm, the breech block unscrews using some large acme-style threads.
The question is usually do you really want to fire one of these live, assuming you can make some solid shot on a lathe with black or smokeless propellant. It would depend on what it is and how it was treated since it's last use.
Look on youtube...there are videos of someone who has one of the rare US 90mm AT gun prototypes from WW2 and the guy fires solid shot through it at places like Knob Creek. As I understand it, it takes the same 90mm Ammo as the M26/M46/M47/M48 (and M56 Scorpion).
On the other hand, something like an old AT gun just firing black powder charges would probably scare the hell out of your average biker gang, though.
-Dave
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