Thank you for the info on this subject.
No problem! Some of these questions have been discussed many times here -- plenty of good reading in the archives.
I do find it funny though that they are worried about a 7lb war rifle being over 26" and 16" for barrel
"They" are worried about it because it is federal law. Why it is federal law is a long story.
(I can see the shotgun because of the increased spray pattern)
That's actually a myth. A shotgun's pattern tightness has entirely to do with the barrel's choke, not with it's length. You get a bit more velocity from a longer barrel, but not a tighter pattern.
Oh well I supose it is not about making sense and more for disarming law abiding citizens huh. What is the deal with the barrel it isnt like a shotgun where it will scatter more it actualy decreases proformance I would be worried about someone keeping the barrel and cutting the stock off for concealability... got any ideas besides the regulation i just mentioned?
The National Firearms Act of 1934 is the federal law that defines the different types of firearm and it divides them into two basic groups. Those like normal rifles, shotguns, and handguns fall under "Title I" of that law, and those like machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, destructive devices (big bore weapons and explosive weapons) and "Any Other Weapons" (stuff like pen guns, cane guns, smooth-bore handguns, etc. are in "Title II."
At the time, US society was full of tales of gangsters and gangster guns scared the pants off the "good folks at home."
The object of the act was to separate arms into those that the average folks needed for hunting and such, and those that were designed to be used against other people and/or were too scary or easily concealed and carried about for nefarious purposes. A $200 tax was instituted on the Title II weapons in an age when that was an unreachable amount of money for the average person. (Something over $3,000 today.) Dangerous and concealable weapons were simply to be taxed out of the hands of average folks.
Originally handguns were to be the most common type of "Title II" weapon -- only available after registration, background checking, and paying the enormous tax.
The law-makers knew that if they effectively regulated handguns out of folks' hands, some enterprising people would take hacksaws to their rifles and shotguns to make impromptu concealable arms (SBRs, SBSs), so they also made concealable firearms "made from a" rifle or shotgun subject to the same restrictions and regulations that machine guns and pistols would have to face.
In the last negotiations, handguns were stripped from Title II of the Act as being too common and useful to be subject to such restrictions. But, very illogically -- one might even say
sloppily -- the arms "made from a rifle" or "made from a shotgun" were left in the law, thus in effect creating the oddball middle-ground type of firearm -- what we today call SBRs and SBSs.
With handguns stripped out of Title II, we are left with a piece of legislation that is completely nonsensical -- You may own firearms that are powerful and large, or you may own firearms that are less powerful and as small as you like. But making or owning an unregistered one that is "in-between" is worth many years in jail.
Ironically, we also created some bizarre hype. Ask pretty much "anyone" and they'll tell you a "sawed-off" shotgun is WAY more dangerous than a normal shotgun. It isn't true, at all, but if you tell someone they can't have something, they'll want it more than ever and believe there's something extra special about it.
