By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
As President Donald Trump signed his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” in celebrating the Fourth of July, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms hailed the bill’s elimination of a $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms, and other gun rights groups were preparing federal lawsuits to challenge the continued existence of the National Firearms Act (NFA).
The first challenge has been filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas by the Silencer Shop Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, B&T USA, Palmetto State Armory, Silencerco Weapons Research, the Gun Owners Foundation and Brady Wetz, a private citizen. Read their complaint here.
Defendants in this case are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Justice, Attorney General Pamela Bondi (in her official capacity), and Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll.
The lawsuit is already being discussed on YouTube by attorney William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law.
Monday, the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, American Suppressor Association and Firearms Policy Coalition announced their plan to also file a federal lawsuit challenging the NFA. The NRA issued a statement Monday declaring, “The elimination of the punitive and unconstitutional tax on these NFA items is a significant legislative victory for NRA members and gun owners across the country. But the unconstitutional registration requirement for the items—which has historically been justified as necessary to prove that the tax had been paid—remains intact. The NRA and its allies will aim to eliminate this registration scheme in their new lawsuit, while continuing to fight for legislation dismantling the NFA entirely.”
In a statement, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb observed, “SAF has been fighting for more than 50 years to remove unnecessary burdens to our constitutional freedoms, and we welcome the opportunity to fight for the further dismantling of the NFA in court. The reforms in the One Big, Beautiful Bill represent the biggest blow to the NFA since its inception, and we fully support its complete repeal. Just like we’ve done for more than five decades, SAF will continue to fight so all Americans can have the freedom to exercise their Second Amendment rights for generations to come.”
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut added, “The NFA is nothing more than a tax scheme which has imposed an unconstitutional burden on Americans since 1934. The registration of these items was only justified as the means to ensure taxes on them had been paid. With the One Big, Beautiful Bill zeroing out the tax for silencers and short barreled firearms, the registration scheme serves no other purpose than to create an unlawful barrier to keep people from exercising their Second Amendment rights. Our intention with this new lawsuit is to completely remove these barriers.”
Predictably, the gun prohibition lobby is predicting nothing short of mass mayhem. Brady United declared in a press release, “This will undoubtedly lead to more bloodshed.” It is essentially the same claim Brady and other anti-gun organizations have made preceding and following passage of concealed carry reform, Constitutional carry passage and other legislation restoring Second Amendment protections as they existed at the Founding.
Gottlieb, who also chairs CCRKBA, noted in a statement on behalf of the grassroots organization, “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.
“When Donald Trump returned to the White House,” Gottlieb said, “he promised to protect the Second Amendment. In just the first six months of his new term, his administration has taken significant steps to do exactly that. He has reversed the anti-gun-rights policies of the previous administration, and taken steps to reform the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced the Justice Department’s Second Amendment Task Force.”
Passage of Trump’s big tax bill with its NFA tax relief signals the start of what could be a major legal offensive by Second Amendment organizations.
