[marktwain]

Not a bad explanation, but...

During the 1930s, crime using automatic weapons like the Thompson Sub Machine Gun and the Browning Automatic Rifle was common

No, it was not. It was the era's version of "School Shootings".

The Thompsons and BARs were very expensive and uncommon. Most used by criminals were stolen from police or national guard armories.

The media of the day made these into sensational criminal tools.

[MacNaughton]

My impression from a dodgey source, Hollywood films, is the Thompson was more associated with the bootlegging crime wave during the Prohibition era.

I recall Clyde Barrow broke into a NG armory to get his BAR. I have not seen anything regarding whether the BAR was available for sale to the general public.

Interesting confluence of history around the 1934 NFA ..

2/15/1933: attempted assassination of FDR 17 days before inauguration

2/17/1933: Reichstag Fire, Berlin, Germany, 4 weeks after Hitler appointed as Reich Chancellor – Nazi Germany heavily restricted private ownership of firearms

6/17/1933: K-C, MO - Kansas City Massacre

1933: National Defense Act of 1916 was amended again. It finally severed the National Guard's traditional connection with the militia clause of the Constitution, providing for a new component called the "National Guard of the United States" that was to be a reserve component of the Army of the United States at all times.

1934:outlaws Bonnie & Clyde (23&25, LA), John Dillinger (31, Chicago), Pretty Boy Floyd (30, OH), Baby Face Nelson (25, Chicago-area) killed by LEOs

[Yo-Yo]

No, it was not. It was the era's version of "School Shootings".

The Chicago "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" had a direct bearing on the 1934 NFA being passed.

But at least in 1934 Congress understood what the Second Amendment said and what "shall not be infringed" meant so they knew they couldn't ban machine guns, so they tried to tax them out of existence.

Short barreled rifles and short barrelled shotguns went along for the ride because originally handguns were also to be taxed at $200, but at the last minute the handgun provision was struck, leaving SBRs and SBSs part of the NFA for no particular reason.

[oldvirginian]

“The Thompsons and BARs were very expensive and uncommon. Most used by criminals were stolen from police or national guard armories.”

IIRC the BAR used by Clyde Barrow was one he had stolen from a police department somewhere along the way.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yep, I think that the Sc will uphold the NFA stating that automatic firearms weren’t “in common use” at the time.

We noted that, “[l]ike most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Id., at 626. “From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Ibid. For example, we found it “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’ ” that the Second Amendment protects the possession and use of weapons that are “ ‘in common use at the time.’ ”

But I also think that Justice Thomas will dissent because in the Bruen case he wrote:

(3) The test that the Court set forth in Heller and applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. Of course, the regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. But the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated, even though its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404–405. Indeed, the Court recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.” 554 U. S., at 582.

[wita]

I have always taken issue with the NFA, as a means to deny rights guaranteed by God and the Bill of Rights by those looking for an excuse to deny deny deny at all cost.

If I’m not mistaken, the Valentines Day massacre of 1929, was also used as an excuse to deny the rights of law abiding citizens for fully automatic weapons made illegal by the NFA. .

A clear cut case of gangland murder using pistols, sawed of shotguns and automatic weapons, to kill BAD GUYS involved in illegal alcohol activities. Who in the end suffers when government goes after human rights? The law abiding that’s who. From 1934 on no more gangland shootings with automatic weapons, which is patently not true. What is true is that law abiding citizens were denied the right to own such weaponry.