After Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the language repealing the taxes and registration requirements for NFA items like suppressors, short barreled firearms, and “any other weapons” could not be included in the One Big Beautiful Bill, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and others quickly floated an alternative: zeroing out the making and transfer taxes, while keeping the registration requirements in place.
That language has now been included in the text of the budget bill that’s slated for a preliminary procedural vote in the Senate later today (you can find it on page 491).
The new language would zero out the making and transfer taxes on suppressors, short barrel rifles and shotguns, as well as “any other weapons”, which should satisfy the demands of Second Amendment organizations NRA, GOA, SAF, FPC, American Suppressor Association, F.A.I.R. Trade Group, and the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers; who released a joint statement on the reconciliation bill Friday night.
The American Suppressor Association, Gun Owners of America, Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers, and F.A.I.R. Trade Group strongly disagree with the weaponized procedural maneuvering used by the unelected parliamentarian to block the removal of suppressors and short barreled firearms from the NFA tax scheme in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Unless the Senate chooses to overrule her egregious decision or the Senate Majority Leader removes the existing parliamentarian, which is well within their rights, immediate action must be taken to ensure law-abiding Americans are able to exercise their Second Amendment rights without the draconian NFA tax.
Though not the full tax repeal it should have been, there is still an opportunity to use well-established precedent to lower the NFA’s unconstitutional excise tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms to zero dollars.
Our organizations stand united on behalf of millions of law-abiding gun owners in calling on Congress to immediately make this revision. This is a critical step in our fight against the unconstitutional NFA tax scheme and for the rights of all Americans.
Democrats will undoubtably object to the new language as well, and MacDonough will have to make another ruling once the bill hits the Senate floor, but folks I’ve spoken with on the Hill and within the 2A community have expressed confidence that by limiting the language solely to taxation and leaving the registration requirements in place the parliamentarian will rule in favor of the amendment.
Some groups, including Gun Owners of America, are still calling on MacDonough to be fired or overruled by Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
GOA will never stop fighting until the NFA is completely repealed.
Keep calling for Queen Elizabeth MacDonough—the unelected Senate Parliamentarian—to be fired or overruled.
☎️(202) 224-3121 https://t.co/gK7lZWqUDf
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 28, 2025
Thune has repeatedly said that isn’t going to happen, and over at The Reload, Stephen Gutowski has a pretty good explainer about why the Senate Majority Leader isn’t likely to oust MacDonough, even with some Republican senators demanding she be fired.
Gutowski’s piece is behind a member’s paywall, so I’d encourage you to subscribe to The Reload and read the entire piece for yourself, but the gist of it is this line:
To many in the Senate, firing or overruling the parliamentarian during reconciliation is akin to ending the filibuster. If you can nuke the parliamentarian on one question in this process, you can nuke them on any. What goes around comes around, or so the thinking goes.
If MacDonough was fired or overruled in order to repeal the taxation and registration requirements for NFA items with just 51 votes, Republicans would be giving Democrats the precedent to expand the NFA the same way the next time they have control of the chamber.Imagine AR-15s and other semi-automatic firearms treated like machine guns, and large capacity magazines treated like suppressors, all because there were 51 Democrats willing to include that language in a budget bill.
That’s just one 2A-specific example, but there would likely be dozens of items on the Democrats’ wish list that would be enacted by disregarding the parliamentarian when they’re in charge. It’s the same rationale for keeping the filibuster in place: what goes around comes around, and any short-term advantage to destroying the filibuster or the tradition of adhering to the parliamentarian’s rulings wouldn’t be worth the long-term damage.
Thune could bend to the demands and dismiss MacDonough or decide her rulings don’t matter, but I really don’t think that’s likely. And if he did do that, we could see provisions that 2A groups don’t like get inserted back into the One Big Beautiful Bill; like the language that would require courts to impose financial bonds before issuing temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions against the federal government, which would cripple the ability of Second Amendment groups and individuals to file lawsuits challenging federal gun laws.
I still think MacDonough’s ruling was ridiculous given that the registration aspect of the NFA is directly tied to the taxing elements. But if the tax goes away, the same coalition that issued its statement on Friday night could always try to challenge the NFA registry in court, arguing that it’s no longer necessary or even moot once the taxes have been zeroed out. It might take a little longer, but we could see the registration requirements disappear… so long as the narrower language survives a second round of parliamentarian scrutiny.
Read the full article here
