I'd read about it a few weeks ago, was reposting to make sure the information was still circulating. As it turns out I first read it on this forum in the News and Politics section.
http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/s...Hughes-amendment-in-place-DONATE-TO-THE-CAUSE
As to what and why it matters, primarily depends on your understanding of the purpose behind the 2nd Amendment and the relevance of having parity with an oppressive force bent on serving a tyrant. That falls under choir preaching, or at least it should.
In a nutshell though:
Suppressors - a safety device that reduces the sound of a firearm discharge to levels that won't permanently damage your hearing with just a few shots. They are not "silencers" as the 100+dba resulting sound is far from silent (most in the 120-140 range down from 160-170+ of un-muzzled guns). They also largely contain the muzzle flash so having a suppressed firearm defending your home at night would also prevent your first shot from night blinding you. Hollywood has long promoted these as the tools of assassins, but if you know the real stats on them you will find they are *required* in other countries as a safety device. In 1934 people weren't very careful about hearing safety (or much else, hardhats, steel toed shoes, safety glasses were rare).
Short barreled long arms (rifle, shotgun) - these were originally included in the '34 NFA because of "concealability" relating to Prohibition era gangsters. Many people today own AR pistols which aside from quibbling about the furniture as the same thing as a short barreled AR rifle/carbine sans stock (but you can still put the buffer tube to your shoulder, with a "storage" pad on it...). Does nothing to prevent or solve crimes but it does create a bureaucratic trap for people who like to build and accessorize their own firearms.
Automatic weapons - the idea of the right partly taken from US vs Miller and other court cases, statements by the authors of the 2nd Amendment, debates and writings of the Founders - is that the arms carried by the common foot soldier are the arms protected by the right. In fact during the Revolutionary War civilians were mostly armed with superior weapons to the British Regulars Brown Bess. In US vs Miller the subject was a short barreled shotgun, that if it was not an Ex Parte decision (Miller was dead, attorney not present) setup to bolster the NFA, evidence would have shown such a weapon was employed as a "trench gun" in WWI and it would have been found to have been protected by the Right. Similarly, soldiers of that time carried Thompson SMGs and Browning BARs as personal weapons, thus making them "militia" arms. Despite Bonnie & Clyde using a BAR, the vast majority of Americans that could own one weren't misusing them to commit crimes, as those who legally own machine guns today are not. However, should an event like the Revolution again come thru American history, suppressing fire will be important and that is the function of automatic weapons and relates to use in a militia.
