Several Second Amendment rights groups filed a federal lawsuit aiming to nullify the National Firearms Act of 1934. The law requires people to register with the federal government before they can own several types of firearms and gun accessories.
The groups – the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), American Suppressor Association (ASA), National Rifle Association (NRA), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), Prime Protection STL Tactical Boutique, and two members of the organizations – are suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Justice Department in federal court.
Challenging registration rules
They’re asking the court to strike down the registration rules in the National Firearms Act so people will no longer have to register certain firearms.
According to the lawsuit, President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), which was signed into law on July 4, eliminated the $200 excise tax on certain regulated firearms under the NFA. These firearms include things like suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons.”
Legal foundation questioned
The groups argue that, without the tax, the NFA’s system of regulating and registering certain firearms is no longer legally valid. They say the NFA was originally justified as a tax enforcement measure. That justification is now gone, “thus making the NFA’s restrictions on those items unconstitutional as applied to those arms.”
The lawsuit points to Sonzinsky v. United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the reason the NFA was valid was because Congress has the right to tax firearms sales. The lawsuit says, “this regulatory regime no longer comports with Congress’s constitutionally enumerated powers. While the NFA’s regulations may have been permissible in support of the statute’s taxes on making and transferring firearms, that justification no longer remains for items whose making and transfer are no longer taxed.”
Second Amendment concerns
The lawsuit also claims that requiring people to register suppressors and short-barreled rifles under the NFA violates their Second Amendment constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
“Because suppressors and short-barreled rifles are neither dangerous nor unusual, and because there is no tradition of requiring the registration and attendant regulation of protected arms, the NFA’s regulatory scheme is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment with respect to suppressors and short-barreled rifles,” the lawsuit states.
Second Amendment Foundation issues statement
“With Congress removing the tax on silencers, short-barreled firearms, and ‘any other weapons,’ the continued inclusion of these items in the NFA serves no purpose, except continuing to retain an impermissible hurdle to the exercise of one’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We look forward to relegating this unconstitutional law to the history books,” Adam Kraut, SAF’s executive director, said in a statement.
No federal response yet
Neither the Department of Justice nor the ATF has responded to the lawsuit.
