National Firearms Act of 1934

The National Firearms Act (NFA), 73rd Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 757, was enacted on June 26, 1934, and currently codified and amended as . The law is an Act of Congress in the United States that, in general, imposes an excise tax on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms and mandates the registration of those firearms. The NFA is also referred to as Title II of the federal firearms laws, with the Gun Control Act of 1968 ("GCA") as Title I. All transfers of ownership of registered NFA firearms must be done through the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (the "NFA registry"). The NFA also requires that the permanent transport of NFA firearms across state lines by the owner must be reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Temporary transports of some items, most notably suppressors (also referred to as silencers), do not need to be reported. Background The ostensible impetus for the National Firearms Act of 1934 was the gangland crime of the Prohibition era, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, and the attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Like the current National Firearms Act (NFA), the 1934 Act required NFA firearms to be registered and taxed. The $200 tax was quite prohibitive at the time. With a few exceptions, the tax amount is unchanged.