Congress Zeroed the $200 Tax and Kept the Registry. A Federal Judge in Texas Just Ruled It Cannot Have Both

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

SAN ANGELO, TX — A federal judge ruled on August 5, 2026, that the National Firearms Act’s registration provisions for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and a final defined group of miscellaneous firearms exceed Congress’s constitutional authority, because Congress erased the tax those provisions existed to collect. The ruling came on cross-motions for summary judgment in two consolidated cases in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, San Angelo Division: the lead case, Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, No. 6:25-CV-056, and Jensen v. ATF, No. 6:26-CV-227, which another judge in the district transferred in and this court consolidated with the lead case. Summary judgment means the court decided the legal question on the papers, without a trial, because the facts that mattered were not in dispute.

Here is the whole thing in plain terms. Congress does not have general authority to do whatever it likes. It has a list of specific powers written into Article I of the Constitution, and one of those is the power to lay and collect taxes. In 1934 Congress used that taxing power to write the NFA: pay a $200 tax to make or transfer certain firearms, and register the item with what is now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The registration paperwork was defended as the machinery for collecting the tax, and in Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506 (1937), the Supreme Court upheld the law on that footing. Not because a federal firearms registry is otherwise within Congress’s power. Because it was a tax.

Then Congress zeroed the tax out. The One Big Beautiful Bill reduced the making and transfer tax to $0 for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and any other weapons, while leaving the registration requirement standing. Gun Owners of America announced in July 2025 that it would sue the moment that change took effect, alongside Gun Owners Foundation, Palmetto State Armory, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Silencer Shop, and B&T USA, on exactly the theory the court has now adopted: take away the tax and the constitutional footing goes with it. I covered that same argument when the Firearms Policy Coalition put it in front of a federal court, in With the Tax Stamp Dead, FPC Tells Federal Court the NFA’s Gun Registry Has to Die With It. What has changed is that the argument is no longer just a filing. A judge has now agreed with it in writing, and FPC Action Foundation is one of the plaintiffs in this case.

The court agreed in blunt language. “Because today’s NFA does not generate any revenue from untaxed firearms, its regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power,” the opinion states. The government could not fall back on some other authority either. The court found “no sign in the NFA’s text, structure, or statutory history that Congress invoked any other power in crafting the NFA provisions at issue,” and held that a statute Congress wrote as a tax cannot be rescued after the fact by a power Congress never claimed. The challenged provisions, the court concluded, “must be enjoined as unconstitutional because they exceed Congress’s enumerated powers.” The fix, the court said, has to come from Congress, not from the bench.

Now the part that decides whether this touches you personally. The relief is a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the challenged provisions against the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. It is not a nationwide strike-down. The court said federal courts lack the power to issue universal injunctions that reach parties who are not before them, which in practice means the ruling protects the states, organizations, businesses, and individuals in these two cases and the people who belong to or buy from them. That is why the plaintiff list is not trivia. Per the Second Amendment Foundation, the Jensen plaintiffs include the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, FPC Action Foundation, the Texas Rifle Association, Hot Shots Custom, and three individuals, and the lead case carries Silencer Shop Foundation’s name. The opinion itself describes the combined plaintiffs as a coalition of individuals, businesses, associations, and states.

There is also a carve-out. The court held that the Jensen plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge the NFA’s regulation of “any other weapon,” the catch-all category, because they never established it from the start of the case. Standing is the requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury of their own before a court may hear their claim, and it is a threshold question, not a technicality a judge can waive. So AOWs stay under the NFA for now even for the winning parties.

Machine guns are not in this ruling either, and the reason is worth understanding. Congress zeroed out four categories of NFA tax and machine guns were not among them. The making and transfer taxes on machine guns still exist, which means the taxing-power justification the court found missing for suppressors and short barrels is still sitting there for machine guns. Later federal statutes restrict them on top of the NFA as well. Nothing here loosens any of that.

What the court declined to do matters too. The plaintiffs also argued the registration scheme violates the Second Amendment, and at the motions hearing they invited the court to skip that claim if it ruled for them on the question of federal power. The court took the invitation, writing that it “does not decide constitutional questions unnecessarily.”

That is not a consolation prize. This is a structural ruling about the limits of what Congress may do, and to me that makes it harder for the government to argue around than a Second Amendment ruling would be. There is no historical-tradition balancing test to fight over, no competing expert record on 1791 or 1868. Either the taxing power supports the regulation or it does not, and the court found that Congress itself removed the tax that made the answer yes for nearly 90 years.

The Second Amendment Foundation, which backed Jensen, called this the first court to reach the issue. “The basis for each lawsuit challenging the NFA registration scheme is the same,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut in the group’s announcement. “Without the tax, the remaining requirements for the affected arms under the NFA have no constitutional basis. And today the first court to rule on the issue has agreed with us.” SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb said the ruling “will set a precedent we can now argue in courts across the country.” SAF is also involved in two other NFA challenges, Brown v. ATF and Roberts v. ATF, so a loss on appeal here does not end the argument.

The next move belongs to the Justice Department, and it is on a clock. The court stayed the effect of the final judgment for seven days to give the government an opportunity to seek relief from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals if it wants it, according to the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. A stay means the ruling is on hold and nothing changes on the ground while the clock runs. So the choice in front of an administration that campaigned on the Second Amendment is a narrow one: appeal a ruling that says the registry lost its legal basis, or let it take effect for these plaintiffs.

Until that window closes and the appeal picture is clear, the practical answer for gun owners has not moved. The NFA process is the NFA process. A district court win is not permission to build or possess something you have not lawfully registered, and being wrong about whether you are covered is a felony question, not a paperwork question. This ruling also speaks only to federal power. It does not touch state restrictions on suppressors or short barrels, and it does not touch carry law, including Texas concealed carry law in the state where the case was decided.

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Still, the argument gun rights groups have made since the tax hit zero has now won once, in writing, in federal court. Nearly a century of registration authority rested on a $200 tax, Congress deleted the tax and kept the registry, and a judge said it cannot have it both ways.

I will continue tracking Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF, along with the remaining NFA registration challenges, as they move through the courts.