A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday ruled that key provisions of a nearly century-old federal firearms law can no longer be enforced, finding that Congress lost the constitutional basis for regulating suppressors and certain short-barreled firearms after eliminating the tax that originally justified the restrictions.
U.S. District Judge James Hendrix, a President Donald Trump appointee, issued a permanent injunction barring enforcement of portions of the National Firearms Act governing suppressors, also known as silencers, as well as short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns.
The ruling stems from legislation signed by Trump last year that reduced the act’s long-standing $200 transfer and manufacturing tax on those items to zero while leaving the registration requirements in place.
The National Firearms Act, enacted in 1934 amid concerns over organized crime and Prohibition-era violence, imposed taxes and registration requirements on weapons considered especially dangerous, including machine guns, suppressors, and certain short-barreled firearms. For decades, courts upheld the law as a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power.
Hendrix concluded that once Congress eliminated the tax on suppressors and the affected firearms, the remaining registration and approval requirements could no longer be justified under that constitutional authority.
“No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified — as they have been for nearly 90 years — under Congress’s taxing power,” Hendrix wrote.
HOW THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL BECAME LAW: READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER’S 10-PART SERIES
The decision could allow purchasers to acquire suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns without completing the federal registration process under the NFA. Standard federal background checks would still apply to purchases through licensed firearms dealers, but opponents of the ruling said the decision eliminates an additional layer of scrutiny that included notifying local law enforcement during the registration process.
Gun rights organizations celebrated the decision as a major victory, saying it could provide a road map for challenging similar federal restrictions nationwide and eventually reach the Supreme Court. Gun control advocates, including Giffords Law Center, called the ruling a setback for public safety, arguing it removes long-standing safeguards for firearms subject to heightened federal oversight.