After the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminating the $200 tax on NFA transfers, a group of gun rights organizations announced their intent to file suit challenging the National Firearms Act as an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment. One that can no longer be defended as merely a tax.
Now a group of plaintiffs including Silencer Ship, Gun Owners of America, SilencerCo and Palmetto State Armory have beaten them to it. You can read their complaint here.
They’re likely doing what I expected ASA, FPC et al. to do, using of one of the left’s favorite tactics against the gun control industry. They’ve filed their complaint in one of the preferred “test case” venues, the Northern District of Texas. They should thus have a friendly court, with any appeal of the case to the also incredibly friendly Fifth Circuit.
That’s a huge head start.
But recall who has to defend this lawsuit…and any suit brought by FPC & Company. That’s right, the case will be defended by the Trump Department of Justice, which is now actively pro-Second Amendment.
So what might that mean? We may see our side take a page from the Obama/Biden administrations’ tactic of “sue and settle.” Under the Democrat administrations, that involved the government collusively working with various environmental groups to file a lawsuit, to which the government would then just “take a knee” and allow a binding judgment to be entered. The government would then point to the judgment and say, “Our hands are tied! The court made us do it!”
Imagine here that the plaintiffs move for a preliminary injunction. The Trump DoJ then says (as it has in other cases recently), “You know, the plaintiffs are correct — this law is actually unconstitutional, and thus we won’t waste the court’s time or taxpayer dollars defending it or opposing the requested relief. Go ahead and enter judgment.”
Badda bing! That’s a binding federal judgment that the remaining NFA regulations on suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs are toast, and thus cannot be enforced against the plaintiffs, their customers and their members.
When California, New York, New Jersey, etc., inevitably try to intervene and claim that they object and will defend the lawsuit, the DoJ will point to the various SCOTUS decisions involving challenges to the 2020 election results, which held that states don’t have standing.
Pass the popcorn. This is gonna be fun.
“Silencer Shop, GOA, SilencerCo, PSA et al. File Lawsuit Challenging the Constitutionality of the National Firearms Act”
I’m verry sorry, but I gotta be ‘That Guy’.
Here’s the main problem with their argument –
The watershed ‘Heller v. D.C.’ ruling, where the majority openly admitted there were ‘exceptionally-dangerous’ weapons that could be regulated.
Now, I would argue suppressors shouldn’t be regulated, since in the rest of the free world, they are, by and large, completely un-regulated. I;d further argue short-barrel long guns aren’t even regulated in Canada, so there’s *zero* reason to regulate them here.
I’d admit machine guns should be regulated, and re-open the registry so all those Glock switches can be put on the registry.
And, let’s be serious – We’ve all seen how deranged the Leftist-Fascist Scum ™ actually are, do you want one of them walking out the front door of a gun shop to murder a bunch of us???
They already have them so may as well make it legal for all so they can be sprayed back.
Maybe we’ll see the result in four years.
If the Trump DoJ doesn’t fight it, we could have a permanent injunction in place by the time the law goes into effect. This isn’t your father’s DoJ, and NDTx isn’t shy about granting relief on gun and 2A issues.
Yeah, didn’t the SCotUS just rule nation-wide injunctions were history?
Won’t the battle need to be fought in each and every district?
“Yeah, didn’t the SCotUS just rule nation-wide injunctions were history?”
From lower courts (below SCOTUS), yes.
Its part of SCOTUS actions to reign in these judges acting unconstitutionally to appease left wing interests who shop for judges willing to issue such injunctions to usurp the power of the President.
I’m surprised Trump didn’t just ignore these judges on these nation-wide injunctions about illegal aliens and gone on and deported them anyway – he can actually constitutionally and legally ignore them as they are in a different co-equal branch and are not above the executive branch, and SCOTUS has confirmed he has the authority to deport these illegal aliens. Another court just tried to usurp the power of the President even after SCOTUS said they could not do it, but has now backed down in their defiance of SCOTUS and constitution and law and Presidential authority so South Sudan is gonna be getting some illegal alien criminals.
Read my comment. The injunction would apply to each named plaintiff (or parties in primitive thereof).
Ergo, all members or customers of SilencerCo, GOA, Silencer Shop, PSA, etc., would be covered, even under the recent ruling.
That’s more than enough to blow the doors wide open.
This is the best DOJ of my adult life. Of course that isn’t saying much, but still…
Compared to the horror we could have had, we are living in the promised land…
BREAKING LAST NIGHT: Huge GOA Coalition Goes After The JUGULAR Of The NFA | It Is STARTING!!!
(note: in short a GOA coalition filed their lawsuit against the NFA. The reduction of the tax to $0 now makes it an unconstitutional thing under existing precedent, there is already existing precedence that says $0 tax and those things associated with it are unconstitutional. So we will see how this plays out.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uplX4Goexdo
Considering the DOJ brief filed in May in the Peterson suppressor case now pending in the 5th Circuit, coupled with the tax removal by the OBBB signed into law on July 4th, the NFA has NO leg to stand on.
Since this case involves a constitutional right, SCOTUS should grant an expedited hearing and hold the NFA unconstitutional – just my opinion