Why do we make a distinction between pistols, rifles, and shotguns?

Do you mean a legal/regulatory distinction? They are very different.

Politicians like groups. They, and their patrons, can be played against each other, for fun, political influence or money.

To a human, a gun is a gun, a rock is a rock. It doesn’t matter the barrel length, action type, ammunition used or parental earth material it’s made of.

To a politico, some rocks are more dangerous than others, depending on color, size, shoulder things that go up, ethnic background, or weight.

It would just be too easy to call them all guns, and regulate the behavior used with them. It doesn’t leave enough room for grifting.
The waste and excess burden, payoffs, bribes, lobbyist-prizes, that is how they make their daily wage, without differing groups to negotiate between they have no existence. They would have to learn a trade and be productive, which is not as profitable as corruption.

Years ago handguns were the boogey man. I can remember anti's urging that handgun sales to non LE be banned. They made pitches that an "Assault rifle" was better home defense weapon than a handgun. Of course this was before the term "Assault Rifle" was in existence, but they specifically recommended rifles such as a M1 Carbine instead of handguns.

Then, as today, common handguns account for the vast majority of the weapons used in criminal activity.

The obvious answer would be that at some point in the past, they were three different and distinct types of firearms, intended for very different purposes.

For a number of reasons, those lines have been blurred. But laws don't automatically change to keep up with innovation. And sometimes those laws are even designed to hinder it.

We made the distinction decades ago so we knew what section of the Sears and Roebuck catalog to look in. As far as legal/regulatory distinction these are politicians who have no common sense.

mcb said:

With the way the supreme court has ruled on several recent firearms related cases outlawing and one of these classification would be a violation of the second amendment. In that light the distinction legally has much less useful meaning.

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Is no longer about "pistol, rifle, shotgun". Now it's all about "assault weapon" features.

mcb said:

Right and they can't come up with a black and white definition of assault weapon any more than they seem to with pistols now.

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I think they could easily come up with a definition for a pistol right now. Agreeing on it and getting the regulations changed? That's another matter.

But you're right about "assault weapon" being undefinable. Not without a hard limit on capacity, and specifying the cycling of the action as coming from the energy of the cartridge being fired.

Don't forget the historic Bowie knife bans

Bowie knife statutes 1837-1899

I own Norm Flayderman’s book: The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend . Mr Flayderman assembled the best collection of pictures of vintage Bowies knives that I have seen. And you know what, there is no single Bowie knife pattern. Nor one Arkansas Toothpick pattern. What is called a Bowie knife is subjective, and patterns changed, a whole lot.

There is no law or requirement that someone cannot find an exception large enough to drive a semi through.

Law Enforcement is having fits with "Designer Drugs"

Designer Drugs

Caffeine is a drug, I hope they don't ban coffee.

Slamfire said:

Don't forget the historic Bowie knife bans

Bowie knife statutes 1837-1899

I own Norm Flayderman’s book: The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend . Mr Flayderman assembled the best collection of pictures of vintage Bowies knives that I have seen. And you know what, there is no single Bowie knife pattern. Nor one Arkansas Toothpick pattern. What is called a Bowie knife is subjective, and patterns changed, a whole lot.

There is no law or requirement that someone cannot find an exception large enough to drive a semi through.

Law Enforcement is having fits with "Designer Drugs"

Designer Drugs

Caffeine is a drug, I hope they don't ban coffee.

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Unless I’m badly mistaken we (Ala) just repealed our “Bowie Ban” as of 1-1-23.

why? Same as the answer to OP’s question, you can’t apply common sense, or logic to laws.

It gives the government an excuse to make more laws.

Guns...........

I always figured handguns were more restricted because they were easier to conceal and more likely to be used by criminals.

I’m pretty sure that’s why they wanted to ban handguns back in 1934 and made restrictions on rifle and shotguns barrel length.

Now assault rifles are the boogeyman. They go after what they think will be easiest to restrict. If “assault rifles” were outlawed tomorrow the number of murders wouldn’t change in any significant amount.

mcb said:

I can't think of any good reason to make that distinction.

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You are trying to apply logic to gun laws where none exists

Sorry; started to jump in early and got distracted. I agree with @Demi-human: the general answer is political. What we see now is the result of the evolution of political priorities over the years. I haven't studied the history in detail, but my impression is that some of the earlier "modern" regulations were racist attempts to keep certain populations from arming themselves. Pistols (including revolvers and autoloaders) are easily concealable so are targeted by some. Automatics were abused by criminals during prohibition so they attracted regulation. The patchwork we see today resulted from immediate priorities pursued without consideration of unintended consequences, and the rise of the political view that the Second doesn't mean what it says.

The only distinctions that I don't like are, "Saturday Night Special", "Assault Rifle", and "Sniper Rifle". They ere all intend to cast an evil shadow and frighten the uniformed about the true nature of these firearms.

As to why ownership and uses of pistols vs. long guns, and etc., differs, as previously stated, distinctions follow under the prevue of our politicians. These people have decline in intelligence to a degree where nothing they do surprises me.

The 1934 gun restrictions are primarily the result of those scary cops-and-robbers gangster movies and had little to do with logic or with reducing crime.
The silencer, short rifle and sawed-off shotgun regulations can be linked directly to how dramatically they were portrayed in Hollywood movies... .

As I understand it, the original 1934 NFA bill included handguns as requiring a $200 tax stamp, and attempted to close a loophole of just sawing off the barrel of a rifle or shotgun to create a handgun substitute by instituting the short barrel rifle and short barrel shotgun categories under the NFA.

Prior to passage of the bill into law, handguns were removed but the loophole-closing SBR and SBS categories remained.

The reason for the distinction comes down to range and concealability.
The Anti-American/Anti-2A crowd really does not like rifles, because they are the primary infantry weapon even to this day. Rifles are what Washington used to fight the crown, and are key to any functioning militia.
Shotguns and pistols, while having military applications, are not sufficiently ranged for most engagements.
Pistols, unlike rifles or shotguns, are concealable, so they have some crime implications.
Yes these lines can get blurred and that is why some regulation around things like sawed off shotguns exists.

Its like when they know(and they do) you already own gun/guns and still make you do the waiting period for your next gun.Senseless.

To me it is just how they are defined/described in federal and state laws that separate them. I know here in Ca there is a definition of each.

“Firearm” is defined in PC 16520.

“Handgun” defined as firearm that is capable of being concealed upon the person in PC 16640.

“Rifle” is defined in PC 17090.

“Shotgun” is defined in PC 17190.

Machine gun, “assault weapon”, short barreled rifle, short barreled shotgun… there are definitions ad nauseum.

Stay safe.