I honestly expected the Department of Justice to file an appeal to the court’s decision in Jensen. That’s the case where the continued registration of suppressors and short-barreled long guns was declared unconstitutional.
There was a stay on the decision pending the possibility of the DOJ filing that appeal, and it was set to expire at midnight. That means today, August 13, 2026, is a brand new day for things like suppressors.
No more registrations, and at least one prominent gun guy has already taken advantage of it.
🚨BREAKING🚨
It’s official! @SilencerShop completed the first lawful, unregistered suppressor transfer since June 26th, 1934.@TheAKGuy’s purchase was approved & @WesVirdellTX skipped the background check with his concealed carry permit. This is One Big Beautiful Victory. 🇺🇸🔫 https://t.co/5cyDgVWeM9 pic.twitter.com/grhXqpMjJV
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 13, 2026
Granted, Herrera’s got the licenses to probably be fine if the ATF decided to get its knickers in a twist over this, but the truth of the matter is that, for a lot of Americans, getting a suppressor has never been easier. In a statement, Herrera said, “I’m happy to once again be working with Gun Owners of America to help be the tip of the spear fighting for gun owners, constitutional rights, and civil rights of not only Texans, but all Americans.”Â
Unfortunately, as things stand, not everyone can take advantage of this new status quo.
As NRA-ILA noted in an email alert, only certain parties can take advantage:
The injunction is limited in scope to the parties in the case. The case is two separate cases that were consolidated (Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and the NRA-supported case Jensen v. ATF). The distinction is somewhat important because the injunction applies in slightly different ways to the different groups of parties.
The SSF parties are B&T USA, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Palmetto State Armory, Silencerco Weapons Research, Silencer Shop Foundation, the States of Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, and several individuals.
The Jensen parties are the Texas State Rifle Association (NRA’s Texas affiliate), Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, FPC Action Foundation, Hot Shots Custom, and several individuals.
The Court’s injunction applies to the parties and “where applicable, the parties’ agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers—both current and future.” This means that the protections of the injunction generally flow “downstream” in the chain of commerce. In general, this means that it will be important for manufacturers, distributors, and dealers to be a plaintiff or a member of a covered group, but customers of these businesses will likely be covered whether or not they are a member of a covered group.
NRA has partnered with TSRA to provide a joint membership for those interested. That membership is available here.
In other words, the fact that these injunctions are limited — something that came about due to the Democrats’ use of lower federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions against anything the Trump administration did during his first term — means that this is some seriously useful marketing for these groups to gain membership and, by extension, money and pull they can use to continue fighting for gun rights.
So why didn’t the DOJ file an appeal?
Well, from the New York Times:
The Justice Department did not explain why it did not immediately appeal the ruling. In an unsigned statement to The New York Times hours before the midnight deadline, the Justice Department said that it “respects Americans’ Second Amendment rights and is currently assessing the impact of the court’s ruling.”
It was a retreat by the Trump administration, which had argued after Mr. Trump’s law was passed last year that Congress still had the authority to restrict particularly dangerous and easily concealable weapons. The government’s move to forgo a stay of the ruling — or issue any public statement on the issue — came after gun rights groups and dozens of Republican lawmakers publicly pressured Todd Blanche, the attorney general, to allow the ruling to stand.
Now, what does this all mean for you and me? It’s a brand new day, so we can all just roll out and throw an SBR upper on our ARs, slap a can on it, and call it good, just so long as we’re part of one of those organizations, right?
Well, I’m not going to tell you that. I’m not an attorney; this isn’t legal advice, and the entire thing is confusing as hell right now. I mean, I’m a member of a couple of the groups listed above, as are many of you, so I’d love to do that with my AR-15, along with a forced-reset trigger just for the lulz, and have the baddest home defense rifle I realistically could have in this day and age.
But I’m allergic to handcuffs, so there needs to be something a bit more definitive here before I risk it. My family likes me earning a living instead of being locked up. They’re weird. They think they need luxuries like food, shelter, healthcare, etc.
Some people.
Still, I think we’re going to start seeing something a bit more definitive about suppressors in the coming days, and that’ll be good news for everyone.
In the meantime, GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said in a statement, “GOA fought to crush the NFA’s unconstitutional restrictions through the One Big Beautiful Bill, but we didn’t stop there. We promised to keep fighting until these restrictions were gone, and now our members are putting the historic victory into action. The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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