Review: 1934 National Firearms Act, Original Bill and Hearings

Gun Watch ^ | 5 February, 2017 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

This ebook is the entirety of the National Firearms Act and Hearings, in a digitized 166 pages, from the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, starting on Monday, 16 April, 1934. It is available from Google at no charge as an ebook.

The Hearings of the National Firearms Act of 1934 provide an immensely valuable resource in understanding the intentions of the law.  It provides a good look at how the intricacies and provisions of the first really significant Federal Firearms law concerning individuals, came to be.

The book is the official record of the hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee and of testimony given in two periods.   First April 16 and 18, 1934, then from May 14 to May 16, 1934.

The most important thing to be noted is that the law was first concerned with the effective registration and regulation of civilian ownership of pistols and revolvers. Machine guns, sawed off shotguns, and gun mufflers/silencers were of relatively less concern, in that order.

There was near unanimous belief that machine guns could be taxed so as to make them virtually unavailable to the common man. That was already the case because of the price. At the time, the only available sub machine gun was the Thompson.  The retail price was $200, and they were not selling strongly.  There was only slight mention of other machine guns.

There was somewhat less agreement on sawed off shotguns. Sawed off rifles were added almost as an afterthought.

The hearings never touched on gun mufflers/silencers at all; no reason was given for their regulation. Machine guns were a concern, but they were few in number. The proponents mentioned they were being manufactured illegally by bootleggers.

It is clearly stated in the hearings, that making the law a "tax" was to avoid the potential violation of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment had not yet been tested in the Supreme Court. The consensus was that States were not restricted by the Second Amendment.

The hearings give an excellent view of the maneuvering of the NRA. Caught somewhat off guard, they rallied and had significant impact.  The reality is considerably different from various rumors you may have heard over the last several decades.

It was the lobbying of gun owners around the nation, lead by the NRA, that killed the inclusion of pistols and revolvers in the bill. Registration of pistols and revolvers, at no fee, was offered.  That option was also killed. The proponents could not give an adequate answer as to why registration was needed.

If a student of gun legislation wishes to understand the history and the antecedents of current legislation, here is an excellent place to start. Nearly all the same arguments used today were presented in 1934.

For example, semi-automatics that could hold 12 or more rounds were initially defined as machine guns.  Changing that definition to the current one, where the requirement is that more than one shot results per pull of the trigger, was one of the first NRA successes.

The ignorance of the people proposing the legislation is obvious.  It is eerily reminiscent of the ignorance seen in the current debate.  Most arguments were based on anecdotal evidence.

Today, there is the advantage of much more data and analysis. The arguments are essentially the same.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in firearms and legislation. It gives important insights into the current debate. 

 ©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

[marktwain]

Roosevelt wanted severe gun control, like Britain. The effort was mostly aimed at pistols and revolvers. The NRA rallied gun owners, and managed to have pistols and revolvers removed from the bill, leaving machine guns, sawed off shotguns and rifles, and gun muffler/silencers.

[redfreedom]

I’ve never understood banning sawed off shot guns. Musta been the “assault rifle” of that era.

[JayElBee]

Would love to see all of it repealed. Would love to see the 86 Hughes amendment overturned at a minimum.

[marktwain]

It was the sensationalist reporting of the newspapers of the time, somewhat like the switchblade ban from the 50’s.

Sawed off shotguns were a substitute for handguns. There were handgun “controls” in a number of States, mainly California and the Northeast, just where we see the most restrictions today.

[marktwain]

I think we have a good chance at repealing the Hughes amendment.

[GailA]

btt

[Chainmail]

Repeal that sucker!

[piroque]

marked later

[Buffalo Head]

Thanks for the post.

[RandallFlagg]

As much as I would love to convert my AR to full auto legally, without worrying about spending my life in prison, I would still only use it in semi-auto for defensive situations. Full auto seems to be only for fun and suppressive fire against multiple enemies -an unlikely scenario for home defense.

Still, I would never want to make MY personal choices for self defense dictated for others, and them forced to adhere to them. Everyone should have their own choice on it.

[Paal Gulli]

There’s an old saying, “Bad news makes worse legislation.” The NFA was a kneejerk reaction to a series of high-profile crimes involving fully-automatic weapons, most notably the Mafia’s Prohibition-era use of the Thompson submachine gun, and Clyde Barrow’s (of Bonnie & Clyde) affinity for the Browning Automatic Rifle. Bonnie and Clyde, point of fact, were machine gunned to death by police the same year as the NFA was passed.

And everybody knows the rest of the story. The minute FDR signed the bill into law, The Mob carted all their machine guns down to the nearest police precinct and turned them in, and they’ve been a peaceable lot ever since. The NFA was eyewash (or hogwash, take your pick), legislators passing a bill they claimed would do exactly what they knew they were powerless to. End violent crime and guarantee public safety.

In the 82 years since, there have been exactly two homicides (and one of them by an LEO using a duty weapon) and very few crimes of any sort committed with legal full-auto weapons. This despite the fact that there are almost half a million privately-owned full-auto weapons in ‘civilian’ America hands.

But only ~176,000 of them are “transferable” under the terms of the 1986 so-called Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, which is why an M-16 can command 10x the asking price of an AR-15 (low supply, high demand).

http://www.nfatca.org/pubs/MG_Count_FOIA_2016.pdf

[PROCON]

RKBA Ping List

This list is for all things pertaining to the 2nd Amendment.

Please FReepmail me to be added to or deleted from this ping list.

[marktwain]

I suspect that there is truth in your analysis. But it is clear from the proceedings that what the FDR administration was really after was pistols and revolvers.

At one point (page 136), the Assistant AG, Keenan, says the law will be ineffective if you take out pistols and revolvers, and only go after machine guns.

The administration fought hard to keep pistols and revolvers in.

The news, as you wrote, is what kept machine guns and sawed off shotguns in the bill. Sawed off rifles were pretty much an afterthought (not in the news, but logical if you are going to put in sawed off shotguns), and no one ever justified the inclusion of gun mufflers/silencers.

The administration repeatedly acknowledged that the bill would not keep gangsters from getting machine guns. They even said they had information that the gangsters were making their own.

The reasons they gave for the extreme tax and regulation were essentially two:

1. No private person has any legitimate reason to own a machine gun. (pure opinion, but no one disputed this at any time during the hearings)

2. Under the tax system, we can prosecute criminals for not paying the tax, and for possession of the machine gun. Today, we use the ban on felons for that purpose. They argued that they had to have the tax system so that they could prosecute “criminals” who had not been convicted yet.

Thanks for your summation. Unfortunately, not everyone knows the facts as well as you do.

[smokingfrog]

My theory is that the moonshiners and bootleggers liked to use them and they were a feared weapon by the revenuers.

[JayElBee]

That would be incredible. It would be nice to have newly manufactured mg’s available to us again. I would not mind paying the $200 tax just to have access to more reasonable MG’s. My bank account would suffer immensely.

[marktwain]

The numbers actually used in crime, at the time, were tiny.

I doubt there were more than 50 machine guns used in crime in the entire United States in 1934.

There were a few highly publicized criminal gangs that used them. They were expensive and relatively hard to get, and not easily concealed.

[smokingfrog]

Re: #14

I was talking about sawed off shotguns.

[marktwain]

No doubt more sawed offs were and are used in crime.

Hard to get at real numbers, though.

[JayElBee]

That would be incredible. It would be nice to have newly manufactured mg’s available to us again. I would not mind paying the $200 tax just to have access to more reasonable MG’s. My bank account would suffer immensely.

[JimRed]

Is the phrase “Shall not be infringed” addressed anywhere in the bill or in the hearings?