ABSTRACT
The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) was the nation's first major federal gun control law. Passed in response to public concerns about the use of "gangster weapons" in violent organized crime, the act applied to certain categories of firearms, including Thompson submachine guns, sawed-off shot-guns, silencers, and a variety of other weapons. Congress passed the NFA as part of the tax code to avoid constitutional issues related to federal gun control. The NFA has changed little over the years and, together with the often revised Gun Control Act of 1968, remains at the core of federal gun control legislation. The Justice Department's first version of the NFA required registering and taxing of most firearms, including pistols and revolvers. To avoid questions of the constitutionality of a federal gun control law, Congress modeled the NFA after the Narcotics Drug Act of 1914, Harrison Act, which used the government's taxing power to control drugs and had already survived a constitutional challenge.
