The NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, American Suppressor Association, and Second Amendment Foundation, filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to challenge the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act (NFA).
There are two private citizens listed as plaintiffs as well.
In the suit, a copy of which Breitbart News possesses, the plaintiffs point to the zeroing of the NFA tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and shotguns in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). They then claim that the zeroing of the tax actually makes the remaining NRA regulations unjustifiable:
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act…signed into law by the President on July 4, 2025, eliminated the making and transfer taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and NFA-defined “any other weapons,” while leaving the registration requirements intact. In other words, individuals no longer have to pay taxes for making and transferring most firearms under the NFA, but the firearms are still required to be registered and are subject to the “web of regulation” that was designed to “aid[ ] enforcement” of the NFA’s (now-extinct) tax.
The plaintiffs then focus on the regulatory aspects of the NFA:
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. To the extent that the NFA imposes requirements on making, transferring, receiving, possessing, or otherwise using untaxed firearms, it cannot be justified as an exercise of any other Article I power. Accordingly, the NFA is unconstitutional as to the untaxed firearms.
In the press release accompany the lawsuit, ASA president Knox Williams said, “With the elimination of the excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs through the One Big Beautiful Bill, our lawsuit challenges the NFA as an unconstitutional registry of now untaxed firearms. Common sense and the law are on our side, and we look forward to fighting on behalf of all Americans in Federal Court.”
John Commerford, executive director of the NRA-ILA observed, “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.”
SAF executive director Adam Kraut noted, “The National Firearms Act’s registration scheme only exists to ensure that the tax on NFA firearms was paid. 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.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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