Nathan Forest
nforest@uwyo.edu
The National Firearms Act (NFA) went into effect in 1934, in the midst of the depression when the mafia was having shootouts with machine guns and shotguns in the streets on a regular basis.
Today, the economy is booming and crime has never been lower. Why is this outdated piece of legislation that was designed to stop people like Al Capone and his henchmen still in effect?
Crime rates have been falling steadily over the past decade or so and continue to plummet. Yet the strict regulations on short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs) and machine guns are still in place.
Let me make my position on machine guns very clear- I am not one of those people who say that everyone should be able to obtain a fully automatic weapon. However, it should be a little easier than it is now for law-abiding citizens to acquire them.
I am ok with how difficult it is to get an automatic weapon, but it should be a one-time background check, where if you pass it, you are given a card and put into a system. Then, buying machine guns should be as simple as showing the card and a verification.
The biggest problem I have is that in 1986, the government passed a law prohibiting firearm manufacturers from producing machine guns that weren’t for the government. This had the effect of making every machine gun to be grandfathered in skyrocket in price, putting them out of the financial reach of most citizens.
People will argue that by allowing any type of deregulation of machine guns, crimes with automatic weapons will skyrocket. This simply isn’t the case, as anyone who is willing to subject themselves to the extensive background checks and probing isn’t going to be a criminal.
There have been so few crimes committed with legally obtained NFA firearms that the cases where they are used are usually spoken of in hushed tones on forums. Most people can only find evidence of one or two cases since the enactment of the NFA of legal NFA weapons being used in the furtherance of a crime.
People also draw most of their knowledge of automatic weapons from movies, where the good guy never has to reload and has incredible accuracy. In reality, machine guns are incredibly difficult to control and accuracy with automatics is a joke, and it takes about 3.5 seconds for an AK to dump a full 30 round magazine.
However, the NFA doesn’t only cover machine guns; it also covers SBRs and SBSs.
SBRs and SBSs should not be specially regulated at all as far as I am concerned. There is nothing that sets them apart functionally from pistols or long guns.
In fact, they are usually worse at their jobs than either a pistol or a long gun. They’re velocity deficient and are usually vastly underpowered as far as rifles go and they are incredibly hard to conceal compared to handguns.
The only advantages of these guns are increased maneuverability in tight spaces and ease of use for beginning shooters. Other than that, short-barreled rifles offer no real advantages for a shooter.
For their shortcomings, SBRs can be quite effective home defense weapons as they are easier to clear rooms with than full carbines. They also offer more stopping power and ease of use than handguns.
SBSs are usually used by the military as a breaching device, using the shotgun to blow locking devices or hinges off doors. This is one of the only things they are good for as their effectiveness drops dramatically outside of maybe 10 yards.
The real reason most people want to own a short-barreled shotgun is because they just look badass. There is just something appealing about a shotgun that is the size of an over-sized handgun.
Most guns used in crimes are obtained illegally, so why stop law-abiding citizens from getting the firearms they want?
