Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Andrew Clyde led a coalition of 47 Republican lawmakers urging the Justice Department to apply a landmark federal court ruling striking down National Firearms Act registration requirements nationwide — and the Trump administration has since confirmed the DOJ will not appeal the decision.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas ruled August 5 in the consolidated cases Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF that the NFA’s registration, application and reporting requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and any other weapons lost their constitutional basis when Congress zeroed out the $200 NFA transfer and making tax on those items as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in 2025. The court held the government could not maintain a regulatory regime built on a tax that no longer exists.
“The court correctly recognized that the NFA’s registration, application, and reporting requirements for short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and AOWs have rested only on the taxing power, and that a tax set to zero can no longer support the regulatory machinery built to collect it,” the lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The letter, co-led by Daines and Clyde and signed by six additional senators and 33 House members, asked the DOJ to decline any appeal, immediately apply the ruling nationwide to all gun owners regardless of whether they are formally covered by the court’s injunction, and initiate rulemaking to permanently rescind or amend the challenged NFA regulations. The seven-day stay Judge Hendrix placed on his ruling lapsed August 12 without any response from the DOJ or ATF. That same evening, Clyde announced he had received confirmation from the Trump administration that the Justice Department will not appeal the ruling at all.
The ruling applies only to those formally covered by the injunction — primarily Silencer Shop customers and members of certain gun rights groups — and does not automatically extend to all Americans. The NFA remains fully enforceable against anyone not covered by the court’s order. The lawmakers and Gun Owners of America, which spearheaded the litigation, are pressing DOJ to use rulemaking to extend relief nationwide.
Daines has been central to the legal and legislative groundwork behind the ruling since 2024, when he began leading efforts to eliminate the NFA’s $200 excise tax. He secured inclusion of the tax zeroing provision in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act and then in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — the legislative move that gave Second Amendment groups the opening to challenge the NFA’s remaining registration requirements in court.
“Gun Owners of America worked with Congress and President Trump to eliminate the National Firearms Act tax on suppressors and short barrels — teeing up our constitutional challenge,” said Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America. “The court just confirmed what everyone already knew: $0 taxes are invalid and the NFA is unconstitutional.”