Federal NFA Paperwork Ended October 9, but GOA Says Pennsylvania’s Section 908 Still Leaves Suppressor and SBR Owners Facing Misdemeanor Charges and Wants AG Dave Sunday to Act

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HARRISBURG, PA — Gun Owners of America says Pennsylvania gun owners and dealers have been left in “dangerous legal limbo” now that the federal government no longer requires registration or approval for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons,” and the group is calling on state Attorney General Dave Sunday to act. GOA Pennsylvania’s Val Finnell laid out the problem in a state alert published October 15, 2026.

Two weeks ago I covered ATF Stops Requiring NFA Approval and Registration for Suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs Nationwide, Effective October 9, 2026. ATF Director Robert Cekada’s open letter, dated and effective October 9, ended the federal approval and registration requirements for those four categories for everyone, not just the parties to the lawsuit. The lawsuit is Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF in the Northern District of Texas. On August 5, a district judge enjoined ATF from enforcing the NFA’s registration and transfer provisions for those items as of August 12, meaning the court ordered the agency to stop. The reasoning traces to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut the NFA making and transfer taxes on those items to $0. With the tax gone, the court held that the registration and transfer provisions were no longer an exercise of Congress’s taxing power for those items. The open letter also said, and I flagged it at the time, that state and local laws were untouched. GOA’s alert is about what that caveat means in Pennsylvania.

The problem, as GOA describes it, is Title 18, Section 908 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, Prohibited Offensive Weapons. GOA says ambiguous language in that section means a Pennsylvanian who makes or acquires one of these items without federal paperwork that no longer exists could face criminal investigation, what the group calls bogus arrests, and first-degree misdemeanor charges. GOA adds that a conviction on those charges carries a lifetime federal firearm ban. The federal rule changed on October 9. Section 908 did not change at all.

GOA’s position is that Section 908 was never meant to reach everyday citizens, and it makes a textual argument. Silencers, GOA says, are not firearms under Pennsylvania law, do not expel a projectile, and are not offensive weapons. Short-barreled rifles and “any other weapons” are not mentioned anywhere in Section 908, according to the alert. And factory-made short-barreled shotguns, GOA argues, have never been “sawed off” and fall entirely outside the statute. I find that reading persuasive, but a persuasive reading in a GOA alert is not a charging policy, and a prosecutor who reads the same words differently is exactly the exposure GOA is describing.

More from USA Carry:

• ATF Stops Requiring NFA Approval and Registration for Suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs Nationwide, Effective October 9, 2026
• Permit Rule, Residency Rule, Local Open Carry Bans: GOA Lawsuit Says Oregon Stacked Them Into a Total Nonresident Carry Ban
• Argument Over Vape Leaves Two Dead in South Carolina After the Second Victim Returned Fire
• Two DUIs From the Early 2000s, a Lifetime Gun Ban He Never Knew He Had: Third Circuit En Banc Rules the Felon Ban Unconstitutional as Applied to a Pennsylvania Man
• Federal Judge Still Thinks New Mexico’s Seven-Day Gun Waiting Period Is Constitutional. He Blocked It Anyway Because the Tenth Circuit Tied His Hands.

That is why GOA is putting this on Attorney General Dave Sunday. The group says Pennsylvanians who exercise rights the federal government now concedes they have should not be at risk of a criminal record for doing it, and it wants the Attorney General to protect them. The alert does not spell out, in the portion available to me, the specific action it is asking his office to take.

I will continue tracking Section 908 and any response from Attorney General Sunday’s office.

Read the original story: Federal NFA Paperwork Ended October 9, but GOA Says Pennsylvania’s Section 908 Still Leaves Suppressor and SBR Owners Facing Misdemeanor Charges and Wants AG Dave Sunday to Act