Terrorist Heritage

Philip Jenkins states that Congress “passed the first federal gun-control law, banning the private possession of automatic weapons and machine guns.” That is wrong.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 provided for the taxation and registration of certain weapons, including fully automatic firearms. It did not ban their mere possession or their future purchase. The federal government engineered this scheme under the rationale of the government’s power to levy taxes, thus sidestepping the Second Amendment issue involved. Civilians can and do still own fully automatic firearms as long as they’re properly registered and the transfer tax paid.

Indeed, the general tone of the entire article seems quite statist in nature. I keep having the feeling that Mr. Jenkins considers federal violation of the individual right to keep and bear arms to be no big deal; therefore, why quibble over mere facts?