Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), asking a federal court to end National Firearms Act (NFA) registration for suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), and “any other weapons” (AOWs).

“Law and order and the Second Amendment go hand in hand,” Hanaway said. “A government that respects the Constitution has empowered, law-abiding citizens who can protect themselves and their families. It does not paper over rights with red tape. The ATF’s heavy-handed restrictions on suppressors threaten lawful firearm use and undermine the rights protected by the Second Amendment.”

BREAKING: Our office is suing the ATF over its unconstitutional limits on suppressors and short-barreled rifles.

A government that respects the Constitution has empowered, law-abiding citizens who can protect themselves and their families. It does not paper over rights with red… pic.twitter.com/R2eucgk3UR

— Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway (@AGCHanaway) September 8, 2026

Missouri Says the NFA Registry Lost Its Constitutional Foundation

The case, Marshak v. ATF, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Hanaway is joined by co-plaintiff Dave Marshak, a law-abiding resident of Festus. The complaint is the latest challenge to the NFA after Congress, in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, cut the making and transfer tax on those four categories from $200 to $0, effective January 1, 2026. Machine guns and destructive devices remain taxed at $200.

Missouri’s first argument is structural. In Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), the Supreme Court upheld the NFA as a revenue measure. Registration, fingerprints, photographs, and ATF approval existed to collect the tax. Section 70436 of the OBBB set that tax at zero for silencers, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs. Once the tax vanished, Missouri says, the registry lost its constitutional footing. Congress has no free-floating power to build a national firearms database, demand biometric packets, and attach felony exposure—up to 10 years and $250,000—when no revenue remains to collect. A registration scheme without a tax, the state argues, exceeds the enumerated powers.

That theory tracks the August 5, 2026, decision in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF. U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in the Northern District of Texas held that because the NFA no longer generates revenue from the untaxed categories, its registration and approval provisions cannot be sustained under the taxing power. Missouri asks the Eastern District to apply the same logic to Missourians.

Suppressors and SBRs Are Arms in Common Use

The state also brings a Second Amendment claim. Suppressors and SBRs, it says, are “arms” in common use for lawful purposes—training, hunting, and self-defense.

Missouri turns ATF’s own numbers against the agency: roughly 6.65 million registered suppressors and 1.23 million registered SBRs. Those figures, plaintiffs argue, make it impossible to treat the items as “dangerous and unusual” weapons that fall outside the Amendment.

Under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, the analysis has two steps. First, the plaintiffs must show the plain text covers the conduct. Marshak is among “the people.” The items are bearable arms. After the Supreme Court’s Wolford decision, that is the end of step one. No extra balancing or interest-weighing is allowed at that stage.

The burden then shifts. The government must prove the modern scheme is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, using founding-era analogues that match both the “how” and the “why.” Colonial gunpowder-storage rules, Missouri notes, existed to keep towns from burning down. They were not a national registry backed by photographs, fingerprints, and felony penalties for possession without federal permission. The complaint says no such tradition exists.

Missouri asks the court for a declaratory judgment that the remaining NFA requirements for these now-untaxed items exceed Congress’s powers and violate the Second Amendment, both facially and as applied. It also seeks a permanent injunction barring ATF and DOJ from enforcing those provisions and related regulations against the covered items, plus costs and fees.

Another Front Opens in the Fight Against the NFA

The filing lands in a crowded field. Industry groups, gun-rights organizations, and more than a dozen states have already challenged the leftover NFA machinery after the tax went to zero. The Texas injunction is limited in scope, and ATF has not issued nationwide implementation guidance.

Hanaway’s suit puts a state attorney general and an individual Missourian in front of an Eighth Circuit district court, adding another venue and another set of plaintiffs to the fight over whether a 1934 tax statute can still force Americans to register commonly owned arms after Congress itself stopped collecting the tax.

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.