The National Firearms Act may have just lost the constitutional pillar it’s been standing on since 1934.
A federal judge has issued a sweeping opinion concluding that the NFA’s registration, paperwork, and approval requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs may no longer have a constitutional basis after Congress reduced the associated taxes to $0.
For nearly a century, the federal government defended those requirements as a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power—not as a general power to regulate firearms. The judge’s reasoning is straightforward: if there is no tax generating revenue, then the regulatory scheme can no longer be justified as necessary to administer that tax.
The Constitution grants Congress limited, enumerated powers—not a general police power. If the NFA’s regulatory provisions were constitutional only because they supported the collection of a tax, and that tax no longer raises revenue, then those provisions cannot simply continue without another constitutional foundation.
This ruling will almost certainly be appealed, but it raises one of the most significant constitutional questions surrounding the NFA in decades. Regardless of where you stand on gun policy, it reinforces a fundamental principle: the government must always be able to identify the constitutional authority for the burdens it places on the people—not simply rely on tradition or administrative convenience.
This case is worth watching closely.