Posted on 11/20/2016 11:48:22 AM PST by marktwain
In 1934, the Franklin Roosevelt administration was able to pass omnibus gun control legislation, with massive infringements on the Second Amendment. It was the National Firearms Act. The law was primarily designed to eliminate the private ownership of handguns. That was too much of a direct assault on the Second Amendment for Congress, which removed handguns from the bill. The remainder of the act passed, creating a bizarre law with unintended consequences.
For obscure and unknown reasons, gun mufflers, also known as silencers, or suppressors, were included in the act. Silencers immediately changed from being a $10 accessory, available over the counter, to becoming an item requiring a federal tax stamp costing $200. The tax stamp required an intrusive and time consuming application process. $200 in 1934 would be $3,600 today. As another measure, $200 was 5.7 ounces of gold in January, 1934. That was by legislative fiat. In December of 1933, it would have been 10 ounces of gold. If you use gold as the standard, 5.7 ounces of gold would be worth $7,400. It was common for a day laborer in 1934 to be paid $1 a day. People worked long days, six days a week. The tax on a silencer was about the yearly pay of a minimum wage worker of the time. It was not a tax. It was a prohibition.
The rest of the world did not share America's self imposed prohibition on gun mufflers. In the rest of the world, silencers were regarded as a useful accessory, something that the neighbors appreciated because it reduced noise pollution.
In Europe, silencers are far less regulated than they are in the United States. In New Zealand, a 12 year old can walk into a hardware store, pay $20, and walk out with a perfectly serviceable commercial silencer.
Inflation has whittled away at the prohibitionist tax on silencers in the United States. $200 dollars is now 28 hours at minimum wage instead of a year's worth of labor. People understand the damage done to unprotected ears by close proximity to gunfire. Silencers have become essential safety equipment in many circumstances.
A growing movement has risen up to place silencers in the same regulatory environment as ordinary rifles and shotguns. It removes the prohibitory tax and the burdensome, unnecessary regulations. Legislation has been introduced in Congress by Matt Salmon (R) Arizona.
It The Hearing Protection Act. It keeps the federal regulation that states refer to when they require federally sanctioned ownership for legal possession of silencers in many. That regulation becomes the same as for ordinary rifles and shotguns.
When legislators are informed of the bizarre history of U.S. regulation and prohibition of these safety devices, they have no problem passing corrective legislation. Josh Waldron, one of three founders of the American Suppressor Association, says that when legislators become informed, 90% of both Democrats and Republicans vote for the reform legislation.
The Hearing Protection Act will pass. It only needs to be presented to Congress.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch
States don’t print money. Bank robbery is a federal crime because of that.
Personally, they were used by most people because ordinances required them or folks of the area considered it common courtesy not to be noisy.
They need to be legal so that law abiding folks have them if they need them, or for target practicing.
That is the narrative that we have been sold, but it is not true. There were no assassinations with silencers even mentioned when the ban was passed. Nearly all the full auto weapons used by gangsters (which was a very, very rare occurrence) were stolen from national guard armories. Sawed off rifles and shotguns were outlawed because the authorities wanted to outlaw pistols. It made no sense to outlaw pistols if anyone could make a pistol from a rifle or shotgun with a hacksaw and 15 minutes time. So sawed off shotguns and pistols were included in the law. When pistols were taken out, the sawed offs were left in, almost by accident, because few people cared about them.
What you are suggesting is mandatory silencers on all firearms in such areas.
If so, forget the current tax on them, the noise suppressors themselves are costing more than some of the firearms that might be able to accommodate them. And lets not leave out the fact that most firearms owned today can't accommodate them unless heavily modified.......
When the left starts crying and stomping their feet just politely tell them this is a “public health issue”.
I will be first in line to get my suppressor. I already have two but I need one for my rim fire and my HD handgun. Without the tax stamp, it will be far easier to justify these purchases.
Point of impact changes. But once you get sighted in, this becomes a non-issue.
You obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
Silencers do not silence. A 170 dB 308 is brought down to about 130 db. Why would anyone be against that?
So the armed robber who shoots the liquor store owner is going to scrupulously follow the law governing suppresors?
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
Noting that I gladly voted for Trump and do not regret doing so, the problem with federal gun laws is the following imo.
While the states have expressly constitutional delegated to the feds the specific power to regulate military firearms, evidenced by the Constitutions Article I, Section 8, Clause 16, the state have never constitutionally delegated the specific power to regulate civilian-use firearms, corrections and insights welcome.
In fact, consider that regardless what FDRs state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congresss Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3), it remains that a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that the states have never delegated to the feds expressly via the Constitution the specific power to regulate INTRAstate commerce.
State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added]. Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So I dont see where the feds have any constitutional authority to regulate the INTRAstate sale and use of firearms.
Patriots need to start working with Trump to inventory federal books for constitutionally indefensible laws, there are probably plenty of them, and either surrender stolen state powers back to the states, or petition the states for new amendments granting Congress the specific powers to justify such laws.
And I wouldnt be surprised if constitutionally low-information Trump eventually finds that some of laws that he signs are unconstitutional.
And because the FEDERAL Deposit Insurance Corporation safeguards most bank accounts.
The Supreme Court has kept on expanding what is defined as commerce between the states until it has come to include everything.
That needs to be corrected, but it is what the current Supreme Court jurisprudence is.
I found this scholarly reference. It says 1934:
” In 1934, the federal government began to regulate
machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers by plac
-
ing a $200 tax on such weapons to discourage their sale
(U.S. Congress, 1986b:219-220). The 1934 congressional
debates provide no explanation about why silencers were
licensed. Paulson (1996:10) opines that during the Great
Depression, poaching game was thought to be a problem
and silencers were licensed because of this concern.”
http://www.westerncriminology.org/documents/WCR/v08n2/clark.pdf
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/National+Firearms+Act+of+1934 is a summary of the original version of the act, it just applies to machine guns and sbr/sbs. it defines a sbr as less than 18”, which was later changed to permit surplussing of M1 carbines and the addition of DD with GCA in 1968. I thought I’d read silencers were added in 1938.
I have a major problem with FDRs state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices ignoring case precedent on Commerce Clause issues.
Hopefully master deal-maker Trump can find a way to put reforming the corrupt Court on his swamp-cleaning calendar.
Have you seen that President elect Trump has referenced the 10th Amendment on his web site?
Any idea who the last president to mention the 10th Amendment in serious discussion might be? I do not. I cannot recall a single one.
https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/constitutional-rights.html
“He will defend Americans’ fundamental rights to free speech, religious liberty, keeping and bearing arms, and all other rights guaranteed to them in the Bill of Rights and other constitutional provisions. This includes the Tenth Amendment guarantee that many areas of governance are left to the people and the States, and are not the role of the federal government to fulfill.”
Who wants to use sub-sonic ammo? I put my hearing protection on and just shoot those heavy loads.
I read the freedictionary source. It seems compounded from a number of post 1980 sources that relied on then current mythologies, rather than original sources from the period.
Every scholarly source I can find includes silencers and handguns, generally, in the proposed bill. Handguns were taken out because Congress objected.
If you study these laws, you find that the “reasons” for passage that are publicised are often just propaganda. For example, there was not significant amount of crime to warrant the ban on the interstate sale of switchblade knives. It was all ginned up by a Congressman from New York City and the media.
Thank you for your efforts in finding a source.
Amazing this hasn’t been done long ago. The “movies” made people frightened (sheeple). You don’t go to a range without your earplugs! I would think as “environmentally sensitive” (hear the birdies singing?) the left is, they wouldn’t have DEMANDED silencers for all guns.
Thats a good sign.
And a greatagain.gov reference to Congresss constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers would be just as welcome.
Patriots need to work with Trump and get him up to speed with the following major constitutional problem.
FDRs state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices wrongly uprooted major case precedents concerning the feds constitutionally limited powers, precedents established by previous generations of state sovereignty-respecting justices.
If patriots do not work with Trump to make Congress surrender state powers that the corrupt feds have stolen from the states back to the states, then consider the following.
It is only a matter of time before we have another lawless president like Obama that works in cahoots with corrupt Congress to use those stolen state power to oppress the states and the people.
Saw a Marlin 39 with a factory Maxim silencer once, very cool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.