ATF Defeated in Ruling Against NFA!

You've probably seen the news all over the internet this week—the NFA has suffered a crippling defeat in court! But what does it mean? What happens next? How did we get here?

Last year, the U.S. Congress lowered the cost of the NFA's tax stamp for short barrel rifles, short barrel shotguns, and suppressors from $200 down to $0. When that law went into effect on January 1st of this year, suppressor sales tripled, but it also created the opportunity for the GOA and others to sue the ATF over the convoluted registry and transfer process that the ATF required to pay that $0 tax.

For the last nine months, legal wheels have been turning in the case of Silencer Shop Foundation et al. v. BATFE, and we just got a ruling!

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix has declared that requiring all the fingerprints, forms, stamps, and registry for a $0 tax is in fact unconstitutional, and ordered a permanent injunction waiving those requirements and blocking all ATF enforcement against the plaintiffs and related parties.

Now comes the complicated part: who are those plaintiffs and related parties? Well, it would include all members of GOA, Gun Owners Foundation, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, the Texas State Rifle Association, FPC Action Foundation, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms; past and future customers of NFA items from PSA, B&T USA, SilencerCo, Hot Shots Custom, and Silencer Shop Foundation; and the 15 state governments that joined the lawsuit, along with their agencies and political subdivisions. Declaring the NFA registration and transfer process to be unconstitutional sets a strong precedent for all Americans, but Judge Hendrix's order is for this case alone.

To extend this precedent more widely, there are three options: favorable rulings on other cases filed by other organizations like the Second Amendment Foundation, or a legislative act from Congress to remove the rest of the NFA from the US tax code, or for the DOJ to appeal this ruling to higher courts until the Supreme Court makes a national judgment covering everyone.

The DOJ was given seven days to make their appeal, if they choose to do so. If they don't attempt to stop Judge Hendrix's order from going into effect on August 12th, people covered by the ruling will be free to buy SBRs, SBSs, and suppressors with a simple 4473 form.

We at T.REX ARMS would like to thank Judge Hendrix for his judgment on this case, as well as his excellent opinion, which covers the unconstitutionality of the NFA registry requirements and the limits of the Commerce Clause. We would also like to thank the organizations that ran these suits, and we would like to thank you, our customers, as well.

As you may recall, we ran a fundraiser for this very lawsuit in January, sending proceeds from our holster sales to GOA to support this effort. You have contributed to a very important step in eliminating infringements on our rights as Americans. You should be encouraged by this victory.