NFA & NRA
Interesting reading is the testimony of the president of the NRA to congress prior to the 1934 National Firearms Act. The original NFA would have classified all handguns and all semi-automatics that held more than 12 rounds as NFA weapons subject to taxes etc. Seems the original NFA prior to NRA’s suggestions is very similar to the classification that Washington DC uses to define machine guns.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:44 am
DC adopted the Uniform Firearms Act (a batch of gun control laws advocated for adoption by all the states in the 30s) definition of machine gun. The feds very nearly adopted it for the National Firearms Act. Pennsylvania was one of the states that adopted many of the provisions of the Uniform Firearms Act, and our main body of firearms laws are still called that today, but they all have their roots in the 1930s UFA. Perhaps I should do more research on this and do a post on it sometime.