Most all gun laws involve 3 critical dynamics
1) Their drafters know very little about firearms, firearms laws, etc...
2) They are usually more for "show" than anything else
3) They don't concern themselves with logic, so whatever is drafted into them doesn't have a very high standard which to meet.
The 1934 National Firearms Act controls, amongst other things, short barreled rifles, but allows handguns.
The only reason the SBR provisions existed was because handguns were originally drafted into the bill- thus, they wanted to control anything “concealable”. So, to prevent a criminal from just “sawing off a rifle” in order to attain a concealable weapon, the barrel length of a rifle was stipulated. But, it was decided that handguns were too prevalent to be controlled under the purview of the NFA. With handguns unrestricted, there is NO REASON to control the barrel length of a rifle… But since they forgot to remove the SBR provisions when they removed handguns from the NFA, they’re accidentally restricted.
JFK was killed with a rifle, so laws were passed controlling the sale of handguns. RFK was killed with a handgun, so laws were passed controlling the sale of rifles.
The “Gun Owners Protection Act” made an entire class of guns unattainable for everyone but the very wealthy. The crime bill defined an “assault weapon” by cosmetic features…
And these are just the federal gun laws… Don’t even get me started on some of the state joke gun laws..