They were originally trying to ban handguns, hence the rifle and shotgun barrel lengths rules to close the loophole, then they removed the handgun regulation and left the SBR and SBS rules for no reason. They also both used to be 18", until the government surplused a bunch of M1 Carbines post WWII and committed a shit-ton of felonies so they just changed it to 16" to match the M1 Carbine barrel length.
The NFA is legislation that is too retarded to live.
Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame), used carry a cut down BAR, as well as sawn off shotguns. I saw a documentary a long time ago talking about the psychological effect the report of the rifle had on the officers he was facing. I'm sure it influenced the law.
Similarly, the 1986 FBI Miami shootout and North Hollywood shootout completely changed the weapon policies of law enforcement. Individual incidents get blown up and shape the future forever.
Side tangent: There was a commercial for MacOS back in the 90s that made fun of 8.3 file formats on DOS platforms and this cause MS to panic implement long filenames with hidden file extensions and it lead directly to the iloveu virus as well as countless hacks and exploits from tricking people into opening files and path parsing issues because filenames can have spaces. It still happens today.
We have the documents for their reasoning. The stated reason was because the mob used handguns for assassinations, they didn't give a rats ass about some bank robbers in the middle of nowhere at the time, but the mobsters were fucking with them on the east coast so they just had to get rid of handguns. Then someone brought up the fact that cut down barrels on rifles and shotguns would be a loophole so they added it in. Then, they decided that the handgun ban wouldn't pass SCOTUS so they dropped it, but left the barrel length in.
They don't mention any one event or person in the documented debates, just organized crime in general.
They have zero documented discussion on suppressors.
Know why suppressors are on the NFA?
Neither does Congress. It was added with no recorded discussion.
unironically because of James Bond films
They were added in the original ban in '34
They were originally trying to ban handguns, hence the rifle and shotgun barrel lengths rules to close the loophole, then they removed the handgun regulation and left the SBR and SBS rules for no reason. They also both used to be 18", until the government surplused a bunch of M1 Carbines post WWII and committed a shit-ton of felonies so they just changed it to 16" to match the M1 Carbine barrel length.
The NFA is legislation that is too retarded to live.
Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame), used carry a cut down BAR, as well as sawn off shotguns. I saw a documentary a long time ago talking about the psychological effect the report of the rifle had on the officers he was facing. I'm sure it influenced the law.
Similarly, the 1986 FBI Miami shootout and North Hollywood shootout completely changed the weapon policies of law enforcement. Individual incidents get blown up and shape the future forever.
Side tangent: There was a commercial for MacOS back in the 90s that made fun of 8.3 file formats on DOS platforms and this cause MS to panic implement long filenames with hidden file extensions and it lead directly to the iloveu virus as well as countless hacks and exploits from tricking people into opening files and path parsing issues because filenames can have spaces. It still happens today.
We have the documents for their reasoning. The stated reason was because the mob used handguns for assassinations, they didn't give a rats ass about some bank robbers in the middle of nowhere at the time, but the mobsters were fucking with them on the east coast so they just had to get rid of handguns. Then someone brought up the fact that cut down barrels on rifles and shotguns would be a loophole so they added it in. Then, they decided that the handgun ban wouldn't pass SCOTUS so they dropped it, but left the barrel length in.
They don't mention any one event or person in the documented debates, just organized crime in general.
They have zero documented discussion on suppressors.