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Some (potentially) big news in the gun world just happened, and I'm surprised @gattsuru hasn't already beaten me to the punch with a thoroughly researched and detailed novel: https://saf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/TX-NFA-opinion.pdf
A federal district court just ruled that short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and suppressors no longer need to be registered under the National Firearms Act (NFA). I need to dig through the ruling and see if AOWs are covered as well before I go put a vertical foregrip on one of my pistols. The gist of their reasoning is that the constitution allows the federal government to tax, and since congress recently changed the amount of the tax for several NFA items down to $0, the accompanying registration requirement is no longer constitutional since it is not part of a tax.
Thanks to recent changes in how injunctions work, this ruling currently only applies to the plaintiffs. But the plaintiffs are the Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America, so if you're a member of either you are covered by the ruling. Also several red states joined the ruling as plaintiffs so if you're a resident of those states you're covered as well.
Big caveat: the ruling doesn't take effect for a week, pending appeal. Also good luck finding too many gun store or other retailers willing to sell you these items until any and all legal questions around them are resolved more permanently (see the guy in California who got prosecuted for buying a standard capacity magazine during "freedom week" for an example of why).
Other than my own personal excitement over this as a gun nut (going to finally get a suppressor for my .308), I'm tentatively excited about this ruling as possible proof that Cthulhu doesn't just swim left and there may be a possible future for conservatism (that doesn't require global economic collapse and/or nuclear war first). There's a decent chance this gets destroyed in an appeal, so I won't get my hopes up too much, but it's a strong sign of some real vitality in at least some sectors of the right that are still able to fight against the constant drift towards both the left and collectivism.
EDIT: After checking the ruling it appears AOWs are NOT covered as well.
Exciting! I’ve seen silencer shop around, but I didn’t realize they had cases in the works. I would very much like to get a can for .22 if nothing else.
That said…I didn’t think constitutional challenges worked like this. Does Congress cite the 16th amendment before laying out Title 26? If not, does the whole edifice of tax law evaporate? This is probably good enough for the 5th Circuit, but I would not expect the Supreme Court to buy it.
On the gripping hand, I’m not sure how much faith I have in a legal team which struggles to use conjunctions. Schoolhouse Rock, guys.
The commerce clause bit not as weak as it looks: the NFA lacks an interstate nexus prong (and people have been convicted for purely in-state manufacture), which is pretty close to Lopez, and there's binding SCOTUS precedent that the law was set up under the taxing power (to avoid regulatory taking rulings) and specifically lower courts "will not undertake, by collateral inquiry as to the measure of the regulatory effect of a tax, to ascribe to Congress an attempt, under the guise of taxation, to exercise another power denied by the Federal Constitution."
In practice, this is the sort of case that gets a Roberts Special.
NFIB v. Sebelius would have gone quite differently under the current court I think. A court where Robert’s is the 4th most conservative justice is very different than where he’s the 6th
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SilencerShop is great, they make a semi-complex process very easy. But I wonder if they are hurting their own business model/differentiator by getting suppressors off the NFA. Good for them in any case.
I can't imagine why or how. I saw suppressor sales with regularity that broadcasted '200$ off' in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the NFA tax. If anything, they should be salivating at the notion of finally getting access to the customer base that didn't want to bother filling out all the necessary forms - everything I've seen in that arena, even before the 0$ tax stamp, has been a push to make purchasing suppressors less and less troublesome for anyone involved.
If this holds up(in the few years it'll take to make it way through the courts), I'm looking forward to the surge of 3d printed supressor sales that'll follow.
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