Laws that essentially make law-abiding citizens retroactively into criminals is... well - criminal. The law was pretty simple back then... they could bring home (some even mailed them) the firearms, bayonets and other relics without having to “register” or pay any taxes. Then along comes the government deciding that those old folks need to register those goodies or face prosecution.
While this act scratches at the scab - it really does nothing to protect the 2nd Amendment rights of those vets or their families (or other transferees). IN fact, this could actually make more criminals out of folks if they later buy one of these guns and don’t realize someone (either out of ignorance of distrust of the government) never registered and paid for their RIGHT...
No, that would never happen. There's an incredible amount of paperwork involved in transferring ("buying") a full-auto weapon. The ATF is currently running on about a 4-month backlog. POSSESSION of a non-registered or non-transferable NFA item is illegal, and people have been murdered by the federal government for it. That's essentially the position these vets are in. Bringbacks were allowed, but they didn't register them, so they are now contraband.