Lawsuit Challenges Regulation Of Untaxed Firearms

Several Second Amendment advocacy groups, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), have filed a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill erased the NFA’s $200 stamp tax on short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, any firearm classified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) as “other,” and suppressors starting Jan. 1, 2026. However, “the firearms are still required to be registered and are subject to” regulations designed to enforce the “now-extinct” tax, the lawsuit says. This “regulatory regime” no longer comports with Congress’ constitutional authority, plaintiffs claim. The lawsuit also argues that “the NFA’s regulation of suppressors and short-barreled rifles violates the Second Amendment.”

“The National Firearms Act’s registration scheme only exists to ensure that the tax on NFA firearms was paid,” Adam Kraut, the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) executive director, said in a press release. “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.”

The lawsuit, Brown v. ATF, was filed on August 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The plaintiffs are the NRA, the American Suppressor Association (ASA), SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), Prime Protection STL Tactical Boutique, and two individual members of these organizations. They are suing both the ATF and the DOJ. The lawsuit asks the court to declare NFA regulations “relating to making, transferring, receiving, possessing, or otherwise using” the untaxed firearms and suppressors unlawful and to block anyone from enforcing the challenged portions of the law.

According to the NRA, an earlier version of the Big, Beautiful Bill included language that would have removed the $200 “federal excise tax, registry, and paperwork currently imposed on suppressors,” short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons” under the NFA. However, this language was removed from the legislation after the Senate parliamentarian advised it violated the Byrd rule. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, the parliamentarian’s role is “purely advisory.” The Senate chair can ignore her recommendations, and “60 senators … could overrule the chair if he sides with the parliamentarian.” What’s more, a “simple majority could add the language back to the bill as an amendment.”

The final version of the Big Beautiful Bill cut the tax from $200 to zero but, as the lawsuit details, still allows for “burdensome” registration requirements. 

The NFA was originally introduced, by the ATF’s admission, with an “underlying purpose” to “curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in NFA firearms.” It was signed into law by FDR under the age-old pretense of preventing violence. At the time, the $200 tax was closer to $5,000 in today’s dollars. The law was later revised because of concerns about its constitutionality, but the tax and registration requirement remained.

“Congress took a major step by eliminating the NFA tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms through the OBBB, and we’re proud to work alongside other leading Second Amendment organizations to finish the job,” said John Commerford, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.