Indeed, Ken. The Peanut Gallery who are not familiar with American firearms laws would probably also find it interesting that the $200 Federal Tax (per weapon, per each time it changes hands) was meant to keep legal weapons out of the hands of the common man.
Around 1934, a $250 1921 Thompson Sub Machinegun cost almost as much as a used car, so a $200 tax essentially doubled that. With prices starting around $5k now (and going upwards to around $30k for some of the rarer-but-available weapons), the $200 tax is a spit in the bucket (although the relative value of the weapons themselves has remained constant).
IIRC, COL Icks (of Aberdeen Ordnance Museum fame) kept a collection of WWI ordnance (howitzers, mortars, etc, in working condition) on the family farm around Princeton (in the People's Republik of New Jersey).
Yup, the wiki link tells all about the origins in the paragraphs before my pull quote. We need a [box] for snark, just so's I can annotate things like [snark]redneck[/snark].
AdamG
Descendent of [snark]Rednecks[/snark].
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