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Notes -
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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