Saving face isn't necessary, just stick to the arguments. Otherwise, given the previous posts, one might interpret that as patronizing.
So you concede that a $200 "tax" in 1934 was for all intents and purposes a ban?
PROHIBITION'S UGLY LEGACY
Three-Tier Legal Status and
Three-Tier Pricing Caused by the
National Firearms Act Of 1934
as Amended by the Gun Control Act of 1968
by
Henry F. Bowman
Professor Nelson
Econ. 20
March 12, 1974
INTRODUCTION
A year after the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, Congress passed the
National Firearms Act of 1934 and created a situation that was (and is)
both unique and bizarre. The situation is unique because no other
consumer good or manufactured product in the entire country is treated
under the law in the same way that NFA firearms are treated. The
situation is bizarre because under this law, two absolutely identical
guns, consecutively produced within one minute of each other by the
same manufacturer on the same assembly line, can fall into such
drastically different legal categories that possession of one has the
government's blessing, while possession of the other (even by the same
person) merits a ten-year prison sentence. As if this were not unusual
enough, a 1968 amendment to the National Firearms Act now prohibits the
owner of the "bad" weapon (whichever of the two guns it may be) from
placing himself in compliance with federal law.
The National Firearms Act introduced a huge distortion into the free
market for all guns which fell under its scope. The result is a threetier
pricing schedule in the market for firearms regulated by this
obscure section of the U.S. Code, as well as several legal questions
which, to date, have not yet been resolved.
This paper addresses a distortion in the free market caused by
government intervention. It is not intended to be a political science
treatise. However, in order to fully understand this distortion and
"how we got here", some history is in order. This is an unfamiliar area
to most people, and it is quite possible that without a thorough
explanation of the history behind current law, the average person would
refuse to believe our present situation.
HISTORY
The issue of owning militia-type arms to protect oneself and one's
freedoms was not controversial in the early days of our country's
history. It was taken for granted. All citizens of this country had
this basic right. Prior to 1934, there were no federal laws regulating
firearms ownership1, and prior to 1865, there were virtually no such
state laws, either. All prohibitions (and attendant punishment) focused
on violent criminal actions and not possession of inanimate objects.
Two events changed this situation on a state level: The Emancipation
Proclamation, and large-scale immigration. Many lawmakers did not like
the idea of foreigners and former slaves having the same rights as
whites. They especially disliked the idea of these "undesirables" being
able to protect themselves and control their own destinies.
Legislators didn't want blacks being able to defend their freedoms,
either at the voting booth, or by having guns. Because the Second
Amendment guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms, and the
Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law,
legislative creativity was required.
Poll taxes and literacy tests solved the problem of blacks voting.
Blocking Constitutionally-protected black possession of inanimate
objects required a slightly different strategy. One solution to the
dilemma was to require permits to possess or to carry arms2 . These
permits could then be arbitrarily denied. Another answer was for a
state to enact an outright prohibition on carrying weapons for selfprotection3
. These outright prohibitions were then selectively
enforced. The South Carolina legislature, perhaps pleased with the
success of their poll tax, passed a law in 1875 prohibiting ownership
of all firearms other than those manufactured by Colt or Winchester1
Since these makes were much more expensive than all others, this law
was a novel way to prevent poor people of all races from having guns
Immigrants got similar treatment. In complete defiance of the U S.
Constitution, California state law prohibited Chinese from testifying
against whites in any court of law for a 20-year period in the late
1800s5 . In New York, discussion urging the passage of the 1907 Sullivan
Law made mention of how that law would make it illegal for "swarthy
immigrants" to have guns6 . Texas gun restrictions subjugated Americans
of Mexican origin7.
All these laws, however, were passed on a state level. It was not until
1934 that any federal law was enacted which affected firearms
possession. There is some disagreement about the impetus behind this
law, as will soon be discussed.
THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT OF 1934
The first significant federal gun law was passed in June of 1934 with
minimal fanfare. It attracted little attention because it only affected
a small number of arms: Full-automatic weapons (machine guns), rifles
and shotguns with barrels shorter than eighteen inches (amended to
sixteen inches for rifles in 1958), and rifles and shotguns with
overall lengths less than twenty-six inches. These arms now fell under
federal regulation. In addition, any device designed or redesigned to
muffle the report of a firearm (a "silencer") also fell under the scope
of the National Firearms Act8 , despite the fact that these devices were
not and are not in any way, shape, or form, "firearms".
Because of the Second Amendment, Congress realized it did not have the
authority to ban these arms. Instead, the bill was slipped in as a
revenue-raising measure under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Under the
National Firearms Act, no person may transport, deliver, or sell in
interstate commerce any firearm or silencer as described above without
first having in his possession a stamp-affixed form for the firearm.
The tax stamp must first be bought so that it can be affixed to the
federal form when it is approved. For the form to be approved, the
applicant must be fingerprinted, signed off by the local police chief,
and submit to an FBI records check. The "stamp" referred to in the law
costs $200. The owner of an NFA-regulated weapon must have this
approved form (with the $200 stamp affixed) in his possession before
the arm (or silencer) in question may be transported in interstate
commerce. This $200 tax must be paid each time the NFA-regulated item
changes ownership.
Because of the size of the tax, the frequency with which it must be
paid, and the method by which it is levied, the National Firearms Act
bears a strong resemblance to the Stamp Act of 17659 .
Being fingerprinted and forced to submit to an FBI investigation is
unusual, to say the least, for a revenue-raising measure. To put this
"revenue raising" tax in perspective, in 1934, $200 was more than a
month's wages for a worker building Model "A"s on the Ford assembly
line in Dearborn, Michigan10 . In the '20s, silencers sold for $2 in
hardware stores and Thompson submachine guns could be bought out of the
Sears catalog for $125. The idea that levying a $200 tax on these
manufactured goods would actually raise revenue is absurd. The demand
for each of the items covered by the National Firearms Act was elastic
enough that virtually no one was willing to pay the government an
additional $200 for any of them According to Treasury Department
records, there was not a single tax-paid registration in 193411 , and
there was one in 193512 .
Another consequence of the Act was that new development of machine guns
by individual inventors stopped overnight. Given that the vast majority
of full-auto weapons now in use were designed by private individuals,
this is a serious issue The U.S.'s foremost authority on machine guns,
Lt. Col. George M. Chinn, has frequently described the Act a
devastating blow to American security in that it has crippled all
future military small arms development in this country and will
continue to do so until it is repealed13 .
After passage of the Act, there were only three classes of people who
continued to buy these goods: Large companies bought the weapons for
strike control and other labor relations purposes14 . Police
departments, the military, and special occupational taxpayers15
continued to buy, for they were exempt from the tax. Violent criminals
continued to buy these weapons outside of legal channels, just as they
had obtained liquor during Prohibition.
This reality brings us to the next issue concerning this obscure
federal law.
REASONS FOR THE PASSAGE OF THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT
In almost every published description of the National Firearms Act of
1934 is a mention of the 1929 "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" , and a
statement to the effect that the Act was passed because machine guns
were being used with horrible results by bootleggers and other
organized crime figures. There are several things wrong with this
claim.
First, it is laughable to hope that people for whom murder is a
standard business practice will go present themselves to the local
police chief to get fingerprinted, and pay $200 for the privilege.
Similarly, it is ludicrous to think that putting legal restrictions on
firearms will reduce their availability to those people whose entire
livelihood involves finding, buying, transporting, selling, and
delivering illegal goods.
Second, the highly publicized incidents of underworld gangs machinegunning
each other over liquor shipments stopped overnight with the
repeal of Prohibition, which occurred a full year before passage of the
National Firearms Act.
Third, the Act also affects weapons other than machine guns; rifles and
shotguns with barrels or overall lengths below a certain minimum are
regulated by the NFA. It is very difficult to conceive of a reason why
the owner of a shotgun with a barrel 17 1/2" long should be charged
with a felony if he refuses to be fingerprinted and pay $200, when
owning a shotgun with a barrel a half-inch longer is no crime at all.
To compound this utter absence of logic, under the National Firearms
Act a person becomes a felon if he affixes a piece of wood to the butt
of his pistol (doubling the weapon's physical size), for he is now in
possession of a "short-barreled rifle", which is covered by the Act.
To make the final leap from the illogical to the ridiculous, the Act
regulates noise mufflers, which are not firearms at all. Hollywood to
the contrary, the FBI has been unable to document a single case of a
firearm silencer being used in a crime in the last fifty years17 . Given
that citizens fire upwards of six billion rounds of ammunition per
year18' , the inclusion of silencers into the NFA is one of the greatest
contributors to hearing loss in the United States and therefore must
rank as one of the largest public health blunders of this century19 .
The real reason for the passage of the National Firearms Act can be
summed up in four words: Expansion of federal powers. In 1934, two
major changes had recently occurred in the United States. The first was
that Franklin Roosevelt had initiated an exponential increase in the
size and power of the federal government. The second change was the
ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Prohibition.
Let us examine the latter incident first.
In the thirteen years that Prohibition had been in effect, there was a
great proliferation of people involved in the illicit manufacture,
importation, and distribution of alcohol. This in turn produced a
tremendous expansion of the Treasury Department and the number of its
agents20 . With repeal, liquor distribution was done by legitimate
businessmen, and thousands of Treasury agents were idled. Federal
legislation levying $200 taxes on goods worth between $3 and $100 was
guaranteed to promote non-compliance by the citizens, thereby giving
former Prohibition agents something to enforce.
It is interesting to note that the original draft of the National
Firearms Act included all handguns then in existence in the United
States. Because of the handgun language, some of the strongest
opposition to the original version of the National Firearms Act came
from women, who were vulnerable to attack from stronger assailants and
got the greatest benefit from being able to carry a small weapon for
personal protection.
The number of pistols and revolvers in the U.S in 1934 has been
variously estimated at between thirty and one hundred million21 Compare
this figure with perhaps one million machine guns and short-barreled
long guns that fell under the Treasury's jurisdiction in the National
Firearms Act's final form22 . One can only guess at what would have
happened if in 1934 the government had told every citizen to cough up
$200 for each handgun he owned that he might some day want to take or
ship across state lines.
The removal of handguns from the National Firearms Act may explain the
odd inclusion of silencers in the legislation. In the first third of
this century, silencers were commonly available in any store where
firearms were sold. The term "silencer" is in fact a misnomer It was a
trade name coined by Hiram P. Maxim, an automotive engineer who applied
the principles of muffler design to safety valves, compressors,
blowers, and firearms23 . A "silencer" does not make a firearm
noiseless, any more than the muffler on a diesel truck exhaust conceals
the fact that the truck is approaching24 . With the 1934 Act making it a
felony to transport common noise mufflers in interstate commerce
without paying $200 (each!) to the government, millions of citizens
were now in violation of federal law.
Although the National Firearms Act stipulated a grace period where
owners could register these weapons and silencers free of charge, the
Treasury reported that a grand total of 15,791 registrations occurred
in this period25 . This indicates approximately 1% compliance. The 1934
Act was thus a huge success at turning millions of citizens into
criminals.
The National Firearms Act fit in perfectly with the systematic creation
of government programs and deficit spending that Franklin Roosevelt
immediately began to institute the instant he took office. The NFA was
a model vehicle for the continued expansion of government power: It was
arbitrary (i.e. the 18-inch rule); it gave the government sweeping
authority over something very common; it focused on inanimate objects
rather than criminal behavior; it levied draconian taxes on these
objects; and most importantly, it created millions of criminals with
the stroke of a pen, just as Prohibition had.
A clear example of the fact that the National Firearms Act had nothing
to do with crime and everything to do with government power occurred
immediately prior to its passage. Senator Hatton Sumners of Texas, the
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had been a virulent opponent
of the proposed bill and had bottled it up because it "did violence to
states' rights"26 . On April 23, 1934, Roosevelt called Sumners into the
White House for a chat. Sumners agreed to vote for passage27.
ENFORCEMENT OF THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT PRIOR TO 1968
After the NFA was passed, sales of affected items came to an abrupt
halt. Domestic firearms manufacturers stopped producing any long guns
with barrels shorter than 18". They also quit making any pistols with
lugs on the butt for shoulder stocks. Manufacturers of noise reducers
(most notably the Maxim Silencer Co.) went out of business entirely.
After the short grace period, citizens who owned NFA-regulated items on
which the tax had not been paid had several choices. The first was to
pay $200 to the Treasury for each item. In 1934, no one did this. The
second choice was to relinquish NFA-regulated items to the Treasury
without any compensation. No one did this, either. The third option,
theoretically at least, was to avoid selling or transporting anything
covered under the Act outside the state. The fourth was to disassemble
the machine gun, short-barreled long gun, or silencer so that it was
inoperable, and keep the parts separate. In the case of short-barreled
arms, the owner could also replace the barrel with one of 18" or
longer, and have a legal, functional gun again without paying $200.
Short-barreled rifles and shotguns were produced in low numbers in the
years prior to 193428 but the same could not be said for machine guns.
The Colt-manufactured Thompson, BAR, and belt-fed Brownings had all
been produced in large numbers and had been available on the civilian
market for over a decade. Furthermore, two million American soldiers
had been sent to Europe in WWI, and over half of these had served in
combat units. These veterans brought home many "war trophies", as they
are called, with complete legality29. Machine guns were a relatively new
and interesting battlefield weapon in 191830, and captured examples were
brought home by most soldiers. A conservative estimate of the fullautomatic
WWI weapons brought into the United States by the returning
two million veterans is one million31. Other knowledgeable sources place
the figure at over twice that32.
The Treasury Department decreed that owners of these weapons could
either register them for $200, or remove critical parts (such as the
bolt) from them, which would render them inoperable. In this latter
case, the gun was no longer considered a weapon subject to registration
and $200 tax, but rather a "DEWAT", which was the Treasury's acronym
(sort of) for Deactivated War Trophy.
When agents encountered an otherwise law-abiding citizen with a nontaxed
machine gun in his possession, standard procedure was to give him
the choice of paying the $200 tax and registering it "live", or
removing the bolt and/or other internal parts.
As years passed, the economy improved, wages and prices went up, and
the U.S. fought in two more wars. A few million more veterans returned
home from WWII and Korea with a few million more war trophies. By the
'50s and '60s, some citizens actually were paying $200 and getting tax
stamps from the Treasury Department on weapons brought back from WWI,
WWII, and Korea, and on newly-purchased machine guns from the many
manufacturers around the world.
11. New York Times. Dec. 25, 1934.
12. New York Times. Nov. 6, 1936.
25. New York Times, December 25, 1934.
32. Lt. Colonel George M. Chinn, author of the now-declassified 2000-
page work The Machine Gun for the Department of the Navy, in a phone
conversation 8/30/70
No machine gun registrations in 1934, one in 1935 when the government estimated that there were millions? Ya, it was enforce all right. The first case that I know of and definitely the first to reach the SCOTUS was from 1938 (
). Surely something that impacted crime as much as you claim would have had lots of cases before 1938 (the ruling was later as it takes time).
1% compliance on silencers despite not having to pay the $200 tax? Apparently, most American's considered it unconstitutional and not worth the effort to comply (despite being made a criminal by not complying!) even though it would cost them nothing.
The 1968 Amnesty registered 57,233 previously unregistered arms, but that number keeps going up as the ATF admits their records are incredibly poor. Caution huge download, but this is from the Congressional Research Service:
You made a statement and I asked a question. You need to explain why we need to draw the line not attempt to shift the burden of proof to me...it's your statement. I never said there should or shouldn't be a line, I asked you why you thought there should be.
I want to know the principle behind why you think there should be a line. Anything else is arbitrary. E.g. "high cap" mags. Ban anything over 10 is arbitrary and then the next round 10 rounders are "high cap", etc.
X2
"Not to worry, I got this !!! " "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." Captain John Parker
