The One Big Beautiful Bill didn’t give us everything we hoped it would give us. Sure, we’re looking at not paying $200 for the “privilege” of owning a suppressor or a short-barreled rifle, among a few other things, but the registration is still a thing. That’s really where I have the bigger issue, for what should look like obvious reasons.
Yeah, it’s a step forward, but it’s such a baby step that no one is going to notice it. The registration is a thing.
However, gun rights groups aren’t going to just shrug it off.
Oh no, not at all.
In fact, several are banding together to advance the Gun Owners of America called the “One Big Beautiful Lawsuit” in a press release:
Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), alongside our allies are announcing that it will file a federal lawsuit to dismantle the remaining provisions of the National Firearms Act (NFA) after the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is signed into law by President Trump and goes into effect.
GOA’s team in Washington had been working behind the scenes with Congress since the November 2024 election to fully repeal the NFA, but congressional Republicans allowed an unelected bureaucrat to block the GOA-backed provision. Instead, the House and Senate settled for reducing the NFA’s $200 excise tax to $0 on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and any other weapons or AOWs—teeing up GOA’s legal challenge.
GOA’s “One Big Beautiful Lawsuit” will ask the courts to strike down the NFA’s absurd new $0 tax and registration scheme for certain suppressors and firearms with short barrels. In the 1930’s, the Supreme Court only narrowly upheld the NFA solely as a tax statute—not as a firearms regulatory law. In Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), the Court ruled the NFA was permissible under Congress’s taxing power. But once the tax is reduced to $0, the constitutional justification for the law collapses.
GOA has also long argued that the NFA’s registration mandates violate the Second Amendment and are an unconstitutional overreach of federal power. With the tax mechanism gutted and reduced to an unworkable state by Congress, GOA’s forthcoming legal challenge will aim to strike down what remains of this obsolete and abusive law.
Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of GOA, issued the following statement:
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dismantle one of the most abusive federal gun control laws on the books. With the tax struck down by Congress, the rest of the NFA is standing on air. We’re ready to take this fight to the courts and finally end the federal registry once and for all.”Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs, issued the following statement:
“GOA and our grassroots activists fought tooth and nail to fully gut the NFA and came closer than anyone else, in the 91 years this infringement has been on the books, to getting it repealed. Congress should never have shifted responsibility to the courts to strike down the archaic National Firearms Act of 1934. Now GOA will do what Republicans would not: continue the fight to repeal the NFA.”
Sam Paredes, on behalf of the board for Gun Owners Foundation, issued the following statement:
“The Supreme Court has made clear that the NFA survives only as a tax law. Once the President signs this bill and the tax disappears, the registry becomes an unconstitutional relic. GOF is prepared to go to court and challenge every remaining provision that violates the Second Amendment.”
The Second Amendment Foundation is also part of the lawsuit, and they offer their thoughts on it in a separate press release.
With the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB), which eliminates the excise tax on silencers and short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns and “Any Other Weapons,” or AOWs, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have issued a joint statement indicating their intention to challenge the remaining registration requirements for the affected arms under the National Firearms Act (NFA) as unconstitutional.
“The NFA is nothing more than a tax scheme which has imposed an unconstitutional burden on Americans since 1934,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The registration of these items was only justified as the means to ensure taxes on them had been paid. With the One Big, Beautiful Bill zeroing out the tax for silencers and short barreled firearms, the registration scheme serves no other purpose than to create an unlawful barrier to keep people from exercising their Second Amendment rights. Our intention with this new lawsuit is to completely remove these barriers.”
As the groups noted in their statement, “While we continue to fight for the total legislative elimination of the NFA, our organizations are proud to stand together in a new strategic lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the NFA in Federal Court.”
Joining SAF are the American Suppressor Association, National Rifle Association and Firearms Policy Coalition.
“SAF has been fighting for more than 50 years to remove unnecessary burdens to our constitutional freedoms, and we welcome the opportunity to fight for the further dismantling of the NFA in court,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The reforms in the One Big, Beautiful Bill represent the biggest blow to the NFA since its inception, and we fully support its complete repeal. Just like we’ve done for more than five decades, SAF will continue to fight so all Americans can have the freedom to exercise their Second Amendment rights for generations to come.”
As noted, the whole purpose of the registry is to make sure everyone pays the tax. The NFA was sold to the American people as a tax. It’s been defended as a tax for decades.
Now, the tax is no more. That means what remains is nothing but a gun registry. We’re not supposed to legally have those, though the ATF keeps trying to work around that despite the law. Still, the NFA registry for the firearms covered in the SHORT Act and the Hearing Protection Act are now exempt from the tax.
If the NFA is what it was claimed to be, there should be no problem with the courts ruling that yes, they should be removed from the NFA registration process entirely now that the tax has been lifted.
I’m sure some judges will argue otherwise, of course, but it’s not like groups like GOA and SAF don’t have experience with avoiding those judges.
Of course, some will lose their ever-loving minds over the mere possibility that this could happen, but they’re already losing their minds over the lifting of the tax. Further, these are people who lose their minds over everything and do so to such a degree that I find it hilarious. I’m not sweating them getting hot and bothered.
Or, more accurately, I’m looking forward to them ramping it up. I bought popcorn futures for it.
The downside to this, however, is that this is likely to take time that it shouldn’t have to take. We can hope that we get an injunction right off the bat–and while the Supreme Court has cracked down on those, my understanding is that the gun rights groups are using a different part of the judicial system than what SCOTUS addressed–and we can get right to buying suppressors and putting shorter barreled uppers on our ARs, but that could also change in an instant if we’re unfortunate.
Still, this lawsuit is the way forward for now. Congress can get its collective heads out of its fourth point of contact and address this so the lawsuit isn’t needed, but they had that chance already. Now, we go forward with this, and let’s hope this gets the job done.
I’m actually confident that it will, especially when you consider the NFA’s history as well as the Bruen decision. Lawyers can twist things, and judges are lawyers, but we’ll have to see how this goes.
Who knows? The DOJ might not even defend the law. That’s unlikely, but not impossible, and it would be hilarious to see happen.
Read the full article here
