The First Firearms Laws and Regulations were a Result of the National Firearms Act of 1934

Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 11:02 pm

There was a time when you didn’t need to have a federal gun license to buy firearms. It’s true, there was in fact a time when you didn’t need a federal gun license to purchase any type of firearms. Up until 1934, almost anyone in the United States was allowed to purchase any type of firearm, including machine guns, short barrel rifles (SBR), short barreled shotguns (SBS), noise suppressors, and destructive devices (DD). And then right around the time that Prohibition ended, the national firearms act was enacted. What this did was to collect a mandatory excise tax on the transfer of all title to weapons. It also required that these same weapons be registered.

The fact that this all occurred around the time of Prohibition indicates that these laws were enacted in order to combat organized crime. After all Prohibition didn’t actually stop the flow of alcohol, it just put the legitimate, legal alcohol distributors out of business and transferred the business to organized crime.

The National Firearms Act requires that any transfer of firearms across state lines gets reported to the Department of Justice. Not only do you have to report the transportation of weapons, you’re charged a transfer tax to do so. Some may argue, and rightfully so, that like a lot of laws that are designed to regulate, this one falls short of it’s original goal of hampering organized crime, and adds undue restrictions, costs, and difficulties to lawful American citizens.

Fast-forward to the gun control act of 1968. This new omnibus act attempts to regulate firearms owners and any interstate commerce involving firearms. It does this by restricting the transfer of firearms to licensed manufacturer’s dealers and importers. Up until 1968, there was no federal gun license required per se. But this changed with the introduction of the federal firearms license or FFL in the Gun Control Act of 1968. Now there is a clear and defined set of rules and requirements that must be followed in order for a law abiding citizen to do deal in firearms or to purchase certain firearms that have been included on a list of weapons categorized by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives.