Gun rights advocates scored a major victory yesterday in a San Angelo Federal Court, with Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruling that provisions of the National Firearms Act imposing registration and approval requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns were unconstitutional. Judge Hendrix’s ruling, which is stayed for seven days, is likely to be appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Today’s ruling by a federal district court in Texas correctly recognizes that once Congress eliminated the NFA tax on short-barreled rifles, suppressors, and similar items, the remaining registration and transfer requirements lost their constitutional foundation. For gun owners, this decision marks an important step toward reducing federal barriers to lawful ownership of these firearms. Because the court’s injunction is temporarily stayed, we will continue monitoring developments closely as the case proceeds,” said Attorney Richard Hayes of Armed Attorneys, a membership-based self-defense legal protection program.
The lawsuit, styled Silencer Shop Foundation, et al. vs. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives, et al., was filed by a coalition of gun rights advocates and a coalition of 15 states – including Texas – last July.
“In 2025, Congress eliminated the NFA’s transfer and making taxes for four categories of firearms: short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, silencers, and a final, defined group of miscellaneous firearms. Because today’s NFA does not generate any revenue from untaxed firearms, its regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power. And there is no sign in the NFA’s text, structure, or statutory history that Congress invoked any other power in crafting the NFA provisions at issue. Thus, the regulatory provisions must be enjoined as unconstitutional because they exceed Congress’s enumerated powers,” wrote Judge Hendrix.
Gun rights supporters applauded Judge Hendrix’s ruling.
“Last year, GOA worked with Congress and President Trump to eliminate a nearly 100-year-old tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms. Today’s decision affirms what GOA members have been saying all along: the archaic National Firearms Act of 1934 and its federal gun registry is unconstitutional,”, said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America, which was one of the Plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The National Rifle Association also hailed the ruling, calling it “another major victory for the National Rifle Association and law-abiding gun owners.”
A group of local governmental entities, including Harris County, Texas, filed an amicus brief in the case in Decemberurging the Court to uphold the challenged provisions of the National Firearms Act.
“This case is about whether we continue to have basic, common-sense safety measures that keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands,” said then-Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who has since been elected to Congress. “There is nothing radical about requiring safeguards for weapons that are designed with concealability or silence in mind. There is nothing un-American about regulations that ensure guns don’t end up with dangerous people and that hold manufacturers accountable when they are making weapons. For decades, these laws have helped local governments protect residents and respond to gun crimes.”Last year, Texas state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1596, which eliminated prohibitions on short-barrel firearms under state law.
