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January 23[edit]

In United States, first point where illegal to possess weapons equal to US Army/Navy?[edit]

When in US History did it first become illegal for an individual US Citizen to possess a weapon either in current usage or prior usage by the US Military? For example, if you managed to create an exact copy of an AEGIS cruiser today, you would be in trouble for both possessing military secrets for parts of the radar system and also in trouble for owning the rockets.Naraht (talk) 14:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article from the Cornell Law School seems to indicate that, from a federal point of view, the first time the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of restrictions on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was United States v. Miller (1939). I'm not sure if there is another direction you want to go with your question, but that will provide you with a baseline. --Jayron 32 15:36, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed may be relevant but, if anything, that case is the *opposite* of what I'm looking for. The decision in Miller was based on the idea that the sawd off shotgun in question was unusable in a the context of a Militia and was unusable for military purposes. I'm specifically looking for laws involving exact copies of military equipment.Naraht (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell that was done in the National Firearms Act of 1934, in the section relating to Destructive devices. Looie496 (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! The National Firearms Act eliminated a *lot* of weapons, it is possible there were others prior to that, but that's probably the right answer...