Regulations Firearm Laws and Ordinances - Federal Government Steps In To Regulate Guns

Americans have long debated the issue of federal regulation of firearms. Those in favor of regulation argue that only federal firearm laws can limit access by criminals, juveniles, and other "high-risk" persons, thereby reducing violent crime. Supporters also contend that without federal laws, states with few firearms restrictions will supply guns illegally to states with more restrictions. Opponents of federal involvement advance Second Amendment arguments against any kind of gun control. They argue that federal gun laws only cause extra burdens for law-abiding citizens who seek to buy and sell firearms.

Up until the 1920s the states made their own decisions about whether and how to regulate firearms. The federal government stepped in after the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) ushered in Prohibition, which resulted in a national crime wave as gangsters built criminal empires based on the illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol. For the first time, crime was seen as a national problem and people debated solutions at the federal level.

The first federal law regulating firearms was passed in 1927 (18 USC 1715). The law banned the mailing of any firearm other than a shotgun or rifle through the U.S. Postal Service, except for firearms shipped for official law enforcement purposes. This law was intended to curb the mail-order business in handguns, and it is still in effect. Many states were inspired by this law to pass their own laws regulating the sale and use of handguns. Supporters of the new federal law tried to get a law passed forbidding the shipment of handguns across state lines by commercial carriers, but they failed. As a result, commercial carriers other than the U.S. Postal Service can carry handguns across state lines.

The next federal regulation was the National Firearms Act of 1934 (26 USC 5801 et seq.), which was designed to make it more difficult to acquire especially dangerous "gangster-type" weapons such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and silencers. The legislation placed heavy taxes on all aspects of the manufacture and distribution of these firearms and required registration of each firearm through the entire production, distribution, and sales process. This law is still in effect, with amendments.

Ordinary firearms were the subject of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (52 Stat. 1250). The act required that any manufacturer or dealer who sent or received firearms across state lines had to have a Federal Firearms License and had to keep a record of the names and addresses of persons purchasing firearms. Firearms could not be sent to anyone who was a fugitive from justice or had been convicted of a felony. It became illegal to transport stolen guns from which the manufacturer's mark had been rubbed out or changed. This act was replaced with the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968.