Friday afternoon, ATF issued new guidance in the wake of the Jensen decision which extended the impact of that ruling nationwide. In short, ATF will now longer regulate the most popular National Firearms Act-regulated items — suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs — as NFA items. You can now buy them the same way you would any other firearm, with an ID, a 4473, and a background check.
You can also now put an 11.5-inch upper that 16-inch rifle you already own, slip a stock on your AR-15 pistol, or make your own suppressor without registering any of them on a Form 1 or engraving them.
Along with the letter announcing the new guidance, ATF also put out a handy FAQ sheet that answers most of the questions people had in this new world in which we find ourselves. Regarding making those cans and SBRs at home, the FAQs advise . . .
BUT (and there’s always a ‘but’) . . . as we and many others have pointed out, all of this is a change in policy, not law.
As we’ve seen, to our great benefit in the last two years, ATF policy has changed drastically under the current administration. The regulatory agency is no longer weaponized against gun makers, retailers and owners, looking for every possible way to cost them money, put them out of business, or throw them in jail.
That, however, can and almost surely will change. Some day.
And the ATF’s FAQs point that out. Way down at the bottom, where few people probably noticed it, they wrote this under the category ‘FUTURE RISK’ . . .
You read that right. A future Congress could reinstate even a $1 fee for a tax stamp and that would blow the underpinnings of the Jensen decision — which concluded that you can’t regulate something under a “tax law” (the NFA) if no tax is collected — to smithereens.
Even without that, a future Democrat administration — one that makes the Biden puppet-masters look like avid hoplophiles by comparison — can and no doubt will install an ATF Director who will rescind the current guidance and continue to enforce the NFA against anyone not a named plaintiff in the Jensen case.
Hold on! What then? If that happens, will I be able to register everything I make and not go to jail?
The answer is…maybe. Maybe the Attorney General, whoever he or she may be, will open up a 90-day window to let everyone who has made their own can or taken a hacksaw to their shotgun barrel come clean and register them under the NFA.
Or maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll just declare anything bought or made under the current guidelines (not NFA-registered) as “contraband” and prosecute anyone as felons who are unlucky enough to be caught with it.
But here’s the thing. There are tens (hundreds?) of thousands of braced AR pistols and Mossberg Shockwaves out there that are now getting good ol’ fashioned stocks. Thousands of suppressors are now being sold daily on 4473s alone. People are out there beavering away in their garages after a quick trip to Home Depot making their own silencers (or printing them).
Little is likely to change between now and January, 2029 to affect any of this. So when President Gavin Newsom puts his left hand on a bible, raises his right hand and takes the oath of office at the Capitol in two years and three months, there will be a lot of “contraband” out there (not that there isn’t already). Suppressors and SBRs, in particular, might even be considered to be in common use (to coin a phrase) by then. So going after everyone who’s taken advantage of the current regulatory environment will be a challenge, to say the least.
Still, that will be up to those in charge at the time. And that is the reality of the current situation. Things can and always do change, short of clarifying legislation (as if) or a Supreme Court ruling.
Anyway, we though you should know. Because amidst all the irrational exuberance of the last three days since the ATF announcement, there’s a very important caveat out there that most people have overlooked. Consider yourself informed as to what could and likely will be coming down the road. Some day.
Let me be the first to throw a spear into the side of the wooden horse.