Gun Rights Groups Sue to Challenge National Firearms Act After Taxes Lifted in ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Gun rights organizations sued the government on July 4 to have the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 declared an unconstitutional gun registry for silencers, short-barreled shotguns, and short-barreled rifles.

According to the lawsuit, President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act effectively removed the tax on these items by reducing it from $200 to $0. However, the firearms must still be registered, making the NFA a firearms registry.

Machine guns and destructive devices are still subject to the $200 NFA tax.

In the 1937 U.S. Supreme Court case, Sonzinsky v. United States, the high court ruled the NFA is a legal exercise of Congress’s taxing authority. The court found that the government could gather information on the owners of certain firearms and their accessories as part of the tax system.

Since the firearms and related items now won’t be taxed, there is no reason for the government to gather that data, the lawsuit states.

“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,” the lawsuit states.

Gun Owners of America, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Gun Owners Foundation, Palmetto State Armory LLC, Silencerco Weapons Research LLC, and Brady Wetz, a resident of Texas, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The defendants are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and acting Director of the ATF Daniel Driscoll.

In a statement released after the filing, the Second Amendment advocates said removing the tax provision leaves no legal support for the NFA. They vowed to keep working to repeal the 91-year-old law.

“With the tax struck down by Congress, the rest of the NFA is standing on air. We’re ready to take this fight to the courts and finally end the federal registry once and for all,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president for Gun Owners of America, stated in a press release.

The gun control group Brady did not respond to an email seeking comment by publication time. Brady’s president, Kris Brown, decried the NFA changes, as well as cuts to other federal programs in the bill, in a post on the Brady website.

“The passage of Trump’s tax legislation is an absolute travesty and a golden gift to gun industry CEOs and would-be assassins and mass shooters,” Brown wrote.

According to Brown, reductions in Medicaid spending and gun violence prevention programs could leave people in poverty, minorities, and those living in rural areas without adequate support.

The bill originally contained language to repeal the NFA. That language was removed after Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined it did not comport with the bill’s tax purposes.

Gun Owners of America has contended that the ATF and other federal agencies have a de facto gun registry in the information gathered during background checks for civilian gun sales, as well as under the NFA provisions. The group has declared that part of its mission is to have the government destroy information it has that could be used to build a registry.

The ATF and other agencies have denied the existence of such a registry.

The NRA and the Firearms Policy Coalition announced that they are joining with other gun rights organizations to file an additional lawsuit over changes to the NFA.