Not really, no it doesn't. How does a government imposed artificial scarcity make sense, especially considering how many people were murdered with a legally owned auto between 1934 and 1986?
It does serve as a warning as to why you should never allow the feds to set up a registry in the first place, since all they have to do once one is in place is hold a midnight voice vote to slip an amendment into a large bill that closes said registry.
Not to mention the BATFE silliness since then; if there's a hole in the wrong part of your receiver than you'll get more jail time than a criminal who actually killed someone.
Besides, you're trying to tell me that if I submit fingerprints, maybe a DNA sample, fill out a bunch of paperwork, pay a $100 filing fee, and wait a couple months that the BATFE will issue me (and anyone else who does the same) a dealer license for autos that will allow me to buy any new auto at cost? Because if that's not the case then the law is still very elitist.
Never mind, Google just answered my question; looks like a Class 3 FFL License (SOT) isn't exactly shall issue, heck it's probably easier to get approved for a CCW in NY City.
edited to add
Perhaps what makes the least sense about the combination of 34 NFA and 86 Hughes is this though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller
On March 30, 1939, the Supreme Court heard the case. Attorneys for the United States argued four points:
1. The NFA is intended as a revenue-collecting measure and therefore within the authority of the Department of the Treasury.
2. The defendants transported the shotgun from Oklahoma to Arkansas, and therefore used it in interstate commerce.
3. The Second Amendment protects only the ownership of military-type weapons appropriate for use in an organized militia.
4. The "double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length, bearing identification number 76230" was never used in any militia organization.
Neither the defendants nor their legal counsel appeared at the U.S. Supreme Court. A lack of financial support and procedural irregularities prohibited the legal counsel from traveling.[2] Miller was found shot to death in April, before the decision was rendered.[3]
On May 15, 1939 the Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice McReynolds, reversed and remanded the District Court decision. The Supreme Court declared that no conflict between the NFA and the Second Amendment had been established, writing:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
So I, and everyone else, should be allowed to own any weapon suitable for use in an organized militia, the government's own prosecutors argued so before the Supreme Court. On top of that, the NFA was sold as a tax measure, not as a gun regulation, gun control, or gun ban measure. As pointed out by another poster, how is it a tax measure if I'm not allowed to pay the tax even if I want to (i.e. I want to buy a new M4A1, register it, and pay the tax ... but I can't legally)?
