Page 2 of the file (page 1 is the folder tab): a typed draft marked "Draft 5/18/34" beginning "In signing the crime bills, the President said," with handwritten insertions and words struck through. — Open the full imageJPG, 1178 × 1498 px, 0.1 MB

Statement by President Roosevelt on signing the crime bills, 18 May 1934 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

The President's statement on signing the May 1934 federal crime bills, which he calls "a renewed challenge on the part of the Federal government to interstate crime." The marked-up draft includes the line "Federal men are constantly facing machine-gun fire in the pursuit of gangsters."

Date: 1934-05-18
Kind: case-file
Source: National Archives Catalog
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
NAID: 122180225
Rights: Presidential statement, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog records the use restriction status as "Unrestricted."

The item is Speech File 702 in the Master Speech Files of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Local ID msf00722. The PDF is a marked-up draft with handwritten edits, so this page quotes only words legible in the typed text. Roosevelt calls the bills “a renewed challenge on the part of the Federal government to interstate crime.” The draft includes the line “Federal men are constantly facing machine-gun fire in the pursuit of gangsters.”

These May 1934 laws came before the National Firearms Act, which was approved on 26 June 1934. It is filed here as the President’s own statement of the federal posture in the weeks before the act.

Object: Typed draft statement with handwritten edits
Maker: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Date: 18 May 1934
Provenance: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Master Speech Files
Appears in: NARA catalog, NAID 122180225

itemNational Firearms Act, ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236 (Public, No. 474, 73d Congress), approved 26 June 1934The statute "to provide for the taxation of manufacturers, importers, and dealers in certain firearms and machine guns." It defines "firearm" and "machine gun," sets occupational taxes of $500, $200 and $300, and a transfer tax of $200 for each firearm.

item"Firearms and the Crime Problem," address by Attorney General Homer Cummings, Baltimore, 5 October 1937Attorney General Cummings explains that his 1934 bill was patterned upon the Harrison Narcotic Act, that without pistols the act became "a federal machine gun act," and reports registrations of 9,316 submachine guns, 11,520 machine guns and machine rifles, 16,456 miscellaneous weapons and 769 silencers in three years.