I don’t know why I just thought of this but why do we have a different legal barrel length requirement for shotguns vs rifles?

18.5 inch for shotguns
16 inch for rifles

I understand where the law in general came from but why wasn’t it written to just say “Blah blah ALL longarms shall have no less then a 16 inch barrel or an 18 inch barrel or a 17.2675 inch etc.”
Has
What practical reason is there for one or the other length based on firearm type??

concealibility and poaching were two driving forces behind the NFA of 1934. I suspect the longer length for shotgun barrels was all about making them harder to wield out a car window to poach.

Looking for reason in gun laws is a head scratching look into the abyss.
Some Most of them make you wonder if the people writing the law ever even saw a firearm.

Because fuck you. It's all arbitrary nonsense, dreamed up by hoplophobes who have long since died and gone to Hell.

Someone else will be along shortly to explain the real answer, but that's just my Sunday Morning Angry Answer.

I do know that originally pistols were going to be NFA items, but that got nixed.

quote:

Originally posted by KMitch200:
Looking for reason in gun laws is a head scratching look into the abyss.
Some Most of them make you wonder if the people writing the law ever even saw a firearm.

And they're usually very proud of their ignorance.

Airsoft Guy nailed it.


Politicians are stupid. They hate gun owners.

Any little thing they can do to fuck with us gives them pleasure.

quote:

Originally posted by PGT:
concealibility and poaching were two driving forces behind the NFA of 1934. I suspect the longer length for shotgun barrels was all about making them harder to wield out a car window to poach.

not so much poaching but gangsters of the era,

al capone etc made famous in the papers , worked up the hysteria to keep the avg guy from getting a thompson, short barrel shotgun, rifle, etc etc,

Although airsoft guy is certainly correct, and there may have been no reason for the difference other than what he states, another possibility exists. Sporting shotguns have generally had longer barrels than rifles, and perhaps it was just a matter of choosing the same percentage of the average barrel length for each that resulted in the final, “legal” figure.

That's easy. Below 18" you get into the realm of the "sawed off shotgun", and we know those can kill a whole room full of people with one shot.

^^ Maybe that's got something to do with it. The popular theory has always been that a shorter barrel on a shotgun would not only make the shotgun more concealable, but would lead to the shot coming out of the barrel spreading faster. Maybe they somehow decided that an 18" barrel wouldn't lead to an especially rapid spread of shot where a 16" barrel would?

Then again, maybe it had something to do with Winchester Trapper lever-action carbines or some other widely-owned rifle that tended to have a 16" barrel, maybe it had something to do with .22LRs, maybe it had something to do with "youth-sized" rifles, maybe, maybe, maybe. As ASG pointed out, anyone who could tell us is long gone.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
I don’t know why I just thought of this but why do we have a different legal barrel length requirement for shotguns vs rifles?

What practical reason is there for one or the other length based on firearm type??

quote:

Originally posted by PTG
concealibility and poaching were two driving forces behind the NFA of 1934.

Because in 1934, the actions of most common shotguns was shorter than rifles...and they wanted a common length?

SxS vs bolt action or lever action

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:
Because fuck you.

It’s early in the year but post of the year material

I get the because fuck you and ignorance etc. What I don't understand is why somebody took the extra fuck you time to say you can have a 16inch rifle instead of just saying all longarms can be no shorter than 18.5 inches.

Its a curiosity to me. It's almost like saying we are going to limit you to 10 round magazines in pistols but you can 15 round magazines in rifles and 6 rounds in shotguns, or some such instead of saying there is a 10 round magazine cap period.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
I understand where the law in general came from but why wasn’t it written to just say “Blah blah ALL longarms shall have no less then a 16 inch barrel or an 18 inch barrel or a 17.2675 inch etc.”

It was, at least initially.

In the original 1934 NFA, the minimum barrel length was 18" for all long guns.

In 1936, an amendment was passed by Congress that allowed rimfire rifles to have a minimum barrel length of 16".

In 1960, another Congressional amendment extended that 16" minimum barrel length to centerfire rifles as well.

Have you ever seen the amendment procesess when they are passing laws? Everyone is throwing out their pet amendments and some of them get added and some of them don't. That is why laws are often a confusing patchwork of statements.

Possible scenario: Law was originally written as 18.5" for long guns. Someone involved was astute enough to realize that his favorite rifle has a 16" barrel. He could care less about shotguns, so to reduce possible objections he limits the 16" amendment to only cover what concerns him.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
I don’t know why I just thought of this but why do we have a different legal barrel length requirement for shotguns vs rifles?

18.5 inch for shotguns
16 inch for rifles

I understand where the law in general came from but why wasn’t it written to just say “Blah blah ALL longarms shall have no less then a 16 inch barrel or an 18 inch barrel or a 17.2675 inch etc.”
Has
What practical reason is there for one or the other length based on firearm type??

Gun laws don’t make any sense because the politicians who seek to restrict our rights have clueless when it comes to firearm use, mechanics, etc. It’s a futile endeavor to try and understand the why. You’ll have about as much success determining why a toddler urinated on the floor.