A conglomerate of gun-rights organizations is pushing back hard against the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) for its continued aggressive defense of the National Firearms Act (NFA) in a court challenge to the law.
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners on January 20 filed a response brief in the second of the organization’s two lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act (NFA) registration scheme, Brown v. ATF. Filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the brief voices the organizations’ opposition to the government’s motion for summary judgment in the case.
As SAF pointed out in a news release on the filing, until President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the NFA established a $200 tax and registration regime on certain classes of firearms including silencers, short-barreled firearms and NFA designated any other weapons (AOWs), drawing from Congressional authority to levy taxes. SAF and its partners filed lawsuits challenging the remaining registration requirements because, without the tax, Congress’s reliance on its taxing authority is no longer justifiable.
The DOJ, however, continues to argue in court to keep the rest of the NFA intact, despite no more taxes on the NFA items.
“The passage of the Big Beautiful Bill kicked the already questionable constitutional authority for the NFA right out from under the ATF,” said SAF Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “With its actual purported authority now eliminated, the government has resorted to borrowing taxation authority from elsewhere in the statute, or entirely different constitutional authority rarely asserted to justify the NFA. Today’s brief explains exactly why neither tactic is persuasive.”
Alan M. Gottliebe, SAF founder and executive vice president, echoed Sack’s thoughts, adding that the government must stop defending the NFA.
“For the second time this week, SAF and its partners have filed opposition briefs in response to the government’s insistence on defending the NFA,” Gottlieb said. “We’re better situated now than we have been in almost 90 years to relegate significant chunks of the unconstitutional NFA to the dustbin of history. Today’s brief is a major step toward that goal.”
Joining SAF in the case are the American Suppressor Association (ASA), National Rifle Association (NRA), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), Prime Protection STL Tactical Boutique and two private citizens.
Gun-rights groups are also battling the federal government in the other case Gottlieb mentioned, Jensen v. ATF. In fact, FPC, a party to that lawsuit, said in a recent news release that the DOJ is acting against the president’s promises in defending the NFA lawsuits.
“President Trump promised to end unconstitutional gun control like the NFA, but his DOJ is in court fighting to keep every bit of it,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “If the Trump Administration is at all serious about restoring the right to keep and bear arms, it should immediately stop spending taxpayer resources to defend unconstitutional laws that treat peaceable gun owners like criminals. The President can end the government’s reign of terror with a call. He should pick up the phone and do it.”