Gun Owners of America (GOA), joined by several allies, is mounting a new legal challenge to the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 — an early federal gun control law that mandates registration and imposes a tax on items like suppressors and short-barreled rifles. The move follows the recent signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which reduces the NFA’s tax stamp to $0, effective Jan. 1, 2026.
The lawsuit argues that with the tax effectively eliminated, the constitutional basis for NFA registration collapses, since Congress originally justified the law under its taxing authority — not under a direct power to regulate firearms.
Lawsuit Filed on Independence Day
Filed on July 4 in the Northern District of Texas, San Angelo Division (Case No. 6:25-cv-00056-H), the suit — Silencer Shop Foundation et al. v. ATF et al. — takes direct aim at the federal registration requirements still in place for NFA items despite the tax being zeroed out.
The plaintiffs include:
- Gun Owners of America
- Gun Owners Foundation
- Silencer Shop
- Palmetto State Armory
- Brady Wertz (an individual gun owner)
Defendants named in the complaint are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Attorney General Pamela Bondi; and Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll.
The no-compromise gun rights group issued a press release revealing how tensions finally boiled over:
GOA’s team in Washington had been working behind the scenes with Congress since the November 2024 election to fully repeal the NFA, but congressional Republicans allowed an unelected bureaucrat to block the GOA-backed provision. Instead, the House and Senate settled for reducing the NFA’s $200 excise tax to $0 on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and any other weapons or AOWs—teeing up GOA’s legal challenge.
GOA’s “One Big Beautiful Lawsuit” will ask the courts to strike down the NFA’s absurd new $0 tax and registration scheme for certain suppressors and firearms with short barrels. In the 1930’s, the Supreme Court only narrowly upheld the NFA solely as a tax statute—not as a firearms regulatory law. In Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), the Court ruled the NFA was permissible under Congress’s taxing power. But once the tax is reduced to $0, the constitutional justification for the law collapses.
GOA has also long argued that the NFA’s registration mandates violate the Second Amendment and are an unconstitutional overreach of federal power. With the tax mechanism gutted and reduced to an unworkable state by Congress, GOA’s forthcoming legal challenge will aim to strike down what remains of this obsolete and abusive law.
Sensing the gravity of the moment, GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt declared:
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dismantle one of the most abusive federal gun control laws on the books. 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.”
What the Lawsuit Seeks
The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue two decisive actions:
- A declaratory judgment stating that continued NFA registration requirements — without an accompanying tax — are unconstitutional
- An injunction to block enforcement of those requirements going forward
The Second Amendment Foundation, another plaintiff, weighed in with a press release of its own:
With the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB), which eliminates the excise tax on silencers and short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns and “Any Other Weapons,” or AOWs, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have issued a joint statement indicating their intention to challenge the remaining registration requirements for the affected arms under the National Firearms Act (NFA) as unconstitutional.
“The NFA is nothing more than a tax scheme which has imposed an unconstitutional burden on Americans since 1934,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “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.”
As the groups noted in their statement, “While we continue to fight for the total legislative elimination of the NFA, our organizations are proud to stand together in a new strategic lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the NFA in Federal Court.”
…
“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,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “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.”
In the simplest terms, the plaintiffs argue that the tax-and-register framework has no legal basis now that Congress has repealed the tax portion.
Why It Matters
The NFA was passed during the Prohibition era with the stated goal of curbing gang violence by taxing and registering certain firearms. At the time, the $200 tax was a prohibitive sum (equivalent to over $4,000 today). GOA and its allies now say this Depression-era law no longer fits modern legal or constitutional standards, especially in light of recent Supreme Court rulings that have strengthened Second Amendment protections.
The lawsuit is poised to carry major implications for the future of the NFA — potentially setting the stage for a high-stakes Supreme Court battle over whether the law exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers following the passage of President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill.
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