Wails from the gun prohibition lobby at the passage of President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which eliminates the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns—a tax originally adopted to discourage people from owning such things—invariably forecast mayhem, but in the background is the genuine fear this will ultimately lead to repeal of the National Firearms Act, at least with respect to the items now removed from the tax.
The NFA became law in 1934 as the first national gun control law, and just like all other gun control laws adopted since, it didn’t prevent criminals from committing violent crimes. But for the anti-gun movement, the NFA symbolizes something the U.S. Supreme Court has now thrice made impossible—the ultimate goal of gun prohibitionists—the elimination of private firearms ownership and emasculation of the Second Amendment.
Now, with one lawsuit filed and more on the way to eliminate the NFA registration requirement on untaxed firearms and suppressors, the gun control crowd—without publicly admitting it—knows deep in its heart this 91-year-old gun law is the hill upon which their movement dies. It is not just the elimination of the $200 tax on those items they are trying desperately to demonize; criminals, crazy people and terrorists have been murdering people for generations with plain old handguns, rifles and shotguns, after all. The NFA represents the notion that restrictive gun control is acceptable. Infringement of the right to keep and bear arms, prohibited by the Second Amendment, became federal law in 1934.
Gun Owners of America and its partners filed the first lawsuit, and another is in the works involving the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, American Suppressor Association and Firearms Policy Coalition. Joining GOA in its legal action are the Silencer Shop Foundation, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, B&T USA, Palmetto State Armory, Silencerco Weapons Research, the Gun Owners Foundation and Brady Wetz, a private citizen.
As noted by Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, “As we move forward toward the ultimate goal of eliminating the NFA, we must remember that the fight has revealed who are our real friends in Congress, and the White House, and we will remind America’s tens of millions of ‘gun-voters’ in 2026.”
Attorney William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law, posted what will likely be only his first commentary on these legal actions on YouTube:
The basis of legal action is spelled out in the GOA complaint:
“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress and the President enacted on July 4, 2025, zeroes the manufacture and transfer tax on nearly all NFA-regulated firearms. That means the constitutional foundation on which the NFA rested has dissolved… And the NFA cannot be upheld under any other Article I power. With respect to the untaxed firearms, the Act is now unconstitutional.
“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act left undisturbed the NFA’s registration requirements and restrictions on manufacture and transfer, which for most NFA firearms now lack any accompanying exercise of Congress’s taxing power. Plaintiffs are individuals and organizations who are burdened by the NFA’s regulatory requirements pertaining to untaxed firearms. Plaintiffs seek an order declaring that the NFA is unconstitutional with respect to the untaxed firearms it purports to regulate and enjoining enforcement of the unconstitutional provisions.”
If the NFA is declared unconstitutional—a possibility the gun prohibition movement genuinely fears—the aftermath could be a flood of legal actions against literally all other restrictive gun control laws. So, anti-gun organizations have cranked up the volume in an effort to convince the “court of public opinion” to overwhelm Capitol Hill.
Everytown for Gun Safety: “Slashing taxes on silencers, short-barreled shotguns and rifles, and similar devices is a $1.7 billion gift to boost gun industry sales that will endanger law enforcement and our communities,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Brady United: “These deadly firearms and accessories have been used in targeted, assassination-style murders, including mass shootings. Silencers enable criminals to elude law enforcement and raise the risk of ambush attacks in which a shooter may escape before someone can even call the police… Almost 100 years ago, Congress enacted this law for weapons with extreme lethality, no lawful purposes, and common use in crime. And for almost 100 years, it has helped protect public safety in America.”
Giffords: “Until now, these dangerous weapons have rarely been used in crimes because the law had successfully stopped them from falling into the wrong hands. The shooters in the 2022 Tops Friendly Market massacre in Buffalo, New York, and the 2023 shooting in Lewiston, Maine tried to buy silencers, but were unable to thanks to the protections in place. If those shooters had silencers, it would have been harder for police to respond. The shootings may have lasted longer and more people may have been killed. This law makes American families less safe.”
Last month, Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, noted now “lawmakers lie loudly over suppressors.”
“Lawful suppressor ownership has increased exponentially in recent years,” Keane wrote. “As of December 31, 2024, there are more than 4.5 million suppressors registered and an estimated 3.14 million suppressors belong to consumers – a number that has only grown in the past six months as application processing times have dramatically gone down.
“In another study looking at the criminal misuse of suppressors in California and nation-wide between 1995 and 2005,” he revealed, “there were just 153 federal criminal cases involving suppressors, only 15 of which involved the actual use of the suppressor in the commission of a crime. Less than 0.1 percent of homicides in federal court, an infinitesimally low 0.00006 percent of felonies in California and a mere 0.1 percent of armed robberies involved a suppressor. Suppressed firearms are clearly not the choice for criminals.”
Keane went on to quote Ronald Turk, former Acting ATF Deputy Director, who suggested in a 2017 White Paper that “Given the lack of criminality associated with silencers, it is reasonable to conclude that they should not be viewed as a threat to public safety necessitating NFA classification, and should be considered for reclassification under the GCA.”
Now would be the right time for Second Amendment activists to support all of the gun rights groups launching federal challenges to the NFA. Lawsuits are expensive, and this is a legal fight grassroots activists and the Second Amendment movement cannot watch from the sidelines.
It’s a fight the gun prohibition movement will pull out all the stops to keep from losing.
As Gottlieb, who is also SAF founder and Executive Vice President made his organization’s motto: “Winning firearms freedom, one lawsuit at a time.”
Reconciliation Bill Passes Making Tax Stamps for SBRs, SBS, & Suppressors $0
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
