1934 put in place new federal rules in 1994 against owning big classes of weapons and weapon accessories weapon accessories to be associated with serious crime. so that 1934 law included things like machine guns and silencers and sawed-off shotguns. and now just because i said that small sequence of sentences, all the gun people are now going to write me really pedantic misspelled threatening letters telling me that i've explained this in a way that they do not like. i welcome your hate mail. bring it on.ot but, frankly, the bottom line truth for most americans is that for 87 freaking years now u.s. law says you can't have a sawed-off shotgun. you cannot shorten the barrel of your shotgun to be 18 inches or less.ot because crime. but this being the united states of america, in which we are not really allowed to have ,