regularguyguns.com 7/8/2017
So, you’ve got your first AR-pattern rifle. It’s probably from a major manufacturer and has a barrel length of 16 inches or longer. Maybe at your local gun shop, you saw ARs with barrel lengths less than that, with the tagline - “All NFA Rules Apply…”
As I’ve discussed before, certain firearms in this country fall under the purview of the National Firearms Act of 1934, which was our country’s first attempt at gun control. It regulated the sale of machine guns, suppressors, short-barreled shotguns (AKA SBSs), short-barreled rifles (AKA SBRs), destructive devices (grenades, etc…) and later, “Any Other Weapons”, a strange grey area I’ll get into in another article. The Act imposed a $200 tax ($5 for AOWs) along with a registration requirement on any items that fell into this category.
The reasoning behind this was devious. At the time, the US had just ended Prohibition after experiencing a crime wave due to a legal product, alcohol, being made illegal. In one of the gravest mistakes in history, our government thought that banning a legal substance would lead to people not demanding it. They were wrong. Prohibition spawned an unprecedented wave of organized crime, as famous underworld figures such as Al Capone regularly transported and dealt in liquor products to a demanding populace. What sealed the deal for the government to “do something” was when Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate FDR in Downtown Miami in 1933. Democrats felt that guns were the source of the problem, and promptly moved to place restrictions on their manufacture and sale. For my Democratic readers, I sincerely apologize if the next bit gets a little scathing…
The Democrats, not seeing the real root causes of the crime wave and the attempt on FDR’s life, chose instead to make a move on the Second Amendment, which is a hallmark of their Party to this very day. After doing some research and seeing that repealing the Second Amendment would be too difficult, the Democrats came up with the NFA of 1934. The initial Act called for the registration of all firearms within the US, and the taxation and registration of all arms produced after the date of passage of the Act. Of course, this would have amounted to a de facto nullification of the Second Amendment. Ironically, the tax idea was inspired by a racially-motivated gun tax in Alabama, where firearms were taxed just enough to keep them out of the hands of poor people, most of whom were black.
More:
http://regularguyguns.com/2017/07/08/All-about-SBRs/
