National Firearms Act

The National Firearms Act of 1934 was rather modest by modern standards. It didn t actually outlaw machine guns or sawed-off shotguns, but it imposed a 200 tax on their manufacture, sale, and ownership—a rather high amount of money at that time. (Because they are short enough to conceal beneath a coat, sawed-off shotguns have long been considered a weapon of particular usefulness to criminals.) The law also required that purchasers of such weapons undergo an FBI bac%round check. 

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (P.L. No. 73-474) placed high taxes on the manufacturers, sellers, and purchasers of automatic weapons (machine guns). Fully automatic weapons made after May 19, 1986, are now banned earlier ones can be sold by federally licensed Class III firearm dealers on payment of tax and after passing a background check. 

The National Firearms Act of 1934 placed high taxes on the manufacturers, sellers, and purchasers of short-barreled guns such as sawed-off shotguns and carbines. 

National Firearms Act of 1934 Sonzinsky v. United States United States V. Miller... 

Furthermore, the petitioner argued that the National Firearms Act was constructed and written in a way that made it clear that it was not intended to raise revenue but rather to discourage dealing in the specified weapons. He also argued that if the purpose of the tax was really to exercise a form of police power, that power belonged not to Congress but to the states. Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States. ... 

The National Firearms Act of 1934 is passed. The law includes a variety of taxes on the manufacture, sale, and transfer of automatic weapons and certain short-barreled weapons, as well as requiring an FBI background check and the consent of local law enforcement officials for any purchase. The law does not apply to handguns. 

National Firearms Act (NFA) weapons Weapons regulated under Title 2 of the National Firearms Act, generally consisting of machine guns, fully automatic weapons, short-barreled shotguns, and certain accessories such as silencers. There are complex regulations regarding the transfer or modification of such weapons. 

NFA weapon A device (such as a machine gun) that requires registration under the National Firearms Act. 

The site NFA and other gun law related info and cares has handily compiled a large collection of gun-related federal and state cases, criminal and civil, as well as a lot of other material on gun laws including NFA (National Firearms Act) dealer registration http //www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/ cs/usr/wbardwel/public/nfalist. 

The National Firearms Act, as applied to one indicted for transporting in interstate commerce a 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long, without having registered it and without having in his possession a stamp-affixed written order for it, as required by the Act, held ... 

APPEAL under the Criminal Appeals Act from a judgment sustaining a demurrer to an indictment for violation of the National Firearms Act. 

A duly interposed demurrer alleged The National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution— A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. ... 

In this connection the brief goes on to assert that it is indisputable that Congress was striking not at weapons intended for legitimate use but at weapons which form the arsenal of the gangster and the desperado id. at 7) and that the National Firearms Act restricts interstate transportation of only those weapons which are the tools of the criminal id. at 8). 

That the foregoing cases conclusively establish that the Second Amendment has relation only to the right of the people to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes and does not conceivably relate to weapons of the type referred to in the National Firearms Act cannot be doubted. Sawed-off shotguns, sawed-off rifles and machine guns are clearly weapons which can have no legitimate use in the hands of private individuals. ... 

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