What is the purpose of the National Firearms Act (NFA)?

The National Firearms Act (NFA) was established primarily to regulate the manufacture, transfer, and possession of certain categories of firearms, including machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and silencers. The main goal of the NFA is to impose control over these more dangerous types of firearms to ensure public safety and to prevent their use in crimes. By requiring registration and imposing taxes on the transfer and manufacture of these firearms, the NFA seeks to keep track of who possesses them, thereby creating a framework for law enforcement to monitor and manage the presence of these weapons in society.

This regulatory approach stands in contrast to promoting firearms safety education, which is more about ensuring responsible ownership and operation of firearms but does not inherently involve legal restrictions. Standardization of firearm design would imply uniform regulations that apply across all states without regard to specific safety concerns, which is not the intent of the NFA. Similarly, deregulating firearm ownership would move to minimize restrictions, going against the core purpose of the NFA, which is to impose such regulations. Thus, the focus of the NFA is squarely on the regulation of specific types of firearms to enhance public safety.