Florida Prosecutor to Sheriffs and Police Chiefs: Florida Law Does Not Require an ATF Tax Stamp for Short-Barreled Rifles and Shotguns After Silencer Shop Ruling

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

GAINESVILLE, FL — The State Attorney for Florida’s Eighth Judicial Circuit has told the sheriffs, police chiefs and command staff in his six counties that Florida law does not require an ATF tax stamp or federal registration to lawfully possess a short-barreled rifle or short-barreled shotgun, and that the collapse of federal NFA registration enforcement changes how arrests, searches and seizures for those items should be handled.

Brian S. Kramer laid out the position in a memo dated October 11, 2026, addressed to law enforcement in Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Gilchrist, Levy and Union counties. It landed two days after ATF’s nationwide announcement, which I covered in ATF Stops Requiring NFA Approval and Registration for Suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs Nationwide Effective October 9, 2026. What the memo adds is the state side: a prosecutor telling his own officers what the federal change does to arrests under Florida’s statute.

Download the memo (PDF)

“Florida law does not independently require an ATF Form 1, Form 4, tax stamp, or registration in the federal registry,” Kramer wrote. “Historically, federal registration was the mechanism by which lawful federal possession was established, but the Florida Legislature did not make federal registration itself an element of lawful possession.”

The chain behind that conclusion starts with Congress cutting the National Firearms Act making and transfer taxes to zero for short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors and certain other weapons. In Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the NFA registration and approval provisions challenged in the case could no longer be sustained under Congress’s taxing power once those items stopped producing tax revenue. The court enjoined enforcement of those provisions, meaning it ordered the government to stop applying them, because they exceeded Congress’s enumerated powers, the specific list of things the Constitution lets Congress do.

The Department of Justice chose not to appeal. On October 9, 2026, ATF issued guidance extending the ruling’s practical effect beyond the people formally covered by the injunction. As Kramer summarizes it, ATF will cease enforcement nationwide of three things: the requirement to obtain prior approval to make or transfer an SBR, SBS or suppressor; the requirement to register those items in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record; and the federal prohibitions on making, receiving, transferring or possessing those items merely because they are unregistered. ATF said the nationwide policy exists to avoid the inequity of applying the ruling only to the parties technically covered by the injunction.

Florida’s statute is why the federal change lands here. Section 790.221, Florida Statutes, bans possession of short-barreled rifles and shotguns, but subsection (3) excepts firearms that are “lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law.” Kramer’s point is that the exception turns on federal lawfulness, not on a piece of paper. The stamp was the proof of lawful possession for decades. It was never the element itself. He cites the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Rinzler v. Carson, which recognized that § 790.221 does not prohibit a firearm lawfully owned and possessed under federal law.

Gun Owners of America saw this exact problem coming. In a June 2025 fact sheet on federal compliance issues for suppressors and short-barreled firearms, GOA warned that some states tie their own NFA laws to federal registration or a tax stamp, and that zeroing the tax could accidentally criminalize possession in those states unless Congress added language treating federal compliance as satisfying any state requirement. Florida’s statute, as Kramer reads it, points the other direction. Because it keys on lawful federal possession rather than registration, the federal change opens the door instead of closing it.

More from USA Carry:

• New Year, No Fee: $200 ATF Tax Stamp Eliminated Under New Federal Rule
• Pennsylvania Democrat Files Memo to Put State Police Inside All 3,000-Plus Licensed Gun Dealers Once a Year
• Congress Zeroed the $200 Tax and Kept the Registry. A Federal Judge in Texas Just Ruled It Cannot Have Both
• Florida AG Files $5 Million Lawsuit Against Jacksonville Over Illegal Gun Registry, Citing 2007 City Memo That Warned Against It
• Michigan Bills Would Erase the State Felony for Suppressors and Short-Barreled Rifles After Federal Court Gutted NFA Registration

Two limits on what this means. The memo is the position of one circuit’s prosecutor, and it governs arrests, searches and seizures in the six counties his office serves. It is not a statewide order, and other state attorneys will decide for themselves. And the federal side rests on an injunction DOJ declined to appeal plus an ATF enforcement policy. Enforcement policies are decisions, and decisions get revisited. The memo also says nothing about carry. If you want the rules on carrying in the state, my Florida concealed carry guide covers them.

I will continue tracking how other Florida circuits and other states with statutes written around the NFA respond to the Silencer Shop injunction and ATF’s guidance.

Read the original story: Florida Prosecutor to Sheriffs and Police Chiefs: Florida Law Does Not Require an ATF Tax Stamp for Short-Barreled Rifles and Shotguns After Silencer Shop Ruling