Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Page 1 of the PDF: a typed title page marked "For release upon delivery," reading "Firearms Control, an interview of the Honorable Homer Cummings, Attorney General of the United States, by Rex Collier of the staff of the Washington Evening Star," broadcast over the Blue Network from station WMAL, Washington, D.C., April 25, 1938.
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"Firearms Control," radio interview with Attorney General Homer Cummings by Rex Collier, 25 April 1938

Prepared Department of Justice release of a broadcast interview in which Cummings argues for extending the 1934 act to pistols and revolvers and says the Department's files hold "long lists of weapons seized from criminals."

Date
1938-04-25
Kind
case-file
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
179028728
Rights
Prepared Department of Justice release of the Attorney General's broadcast interview, 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 interview was broadcast by Rex Collier of the Washington Evening Star over the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company from station WMAL, on 25 April 1938, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. The questions are Collier’s and the answers are Cummings’s; the transcript is a Department of Justice release.

Collier describes “a statute enacted in 1934” that “placed machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, sawed-off rifles, and silencers under Federal regulations,” and notes that Cummings is urging its extension to pistols, revolvers and gas guns. Cummings answers: “In the files of the Department of Justice are long lists of weapons seized from criminals at the time of their capture. The arsenal of one gangster contained over forty weapons.” He concludes: “Nation-wide uniform registration of firearms must be had in order to cope with it in an effective manner.”

The passage on seized weapons was checked against the page image of the release copy (page 4 of the PDF); Collier’s question was read from the catalog’s text layer. The statement is the Attorney General’s argument for a further law, not an inventory; this page does not say whose arsenal he meant.

Object: Typed interview transcript, release copy
Maker: Homer Cummings, Attorney General; questions by Rex Collier
Date: 25 April 1938
Provenance: National Archives, Record Group 60, Attorney General speeches
Appears in: NARA catalog, NAID 179028728

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.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.