Historic NFA Rulings: What FFLs Need to Know

If you run a firearms business, this was the week the National Firearms Act started coming apart — at least on paper. On Wednesday, August 5, two different federal judges in the Northern District of Texas ruled that core pieces of the 1934 NFA registration scheme are unconstitutional now that Congress eliminated the transfer and making taxes on suppressors and short-barreled firearms. That is the kind of headline that gets forwarded around dealer group chats. It is also the kind of headline that needs a careful read before anyone changes how they run their counter.

Two Rulings, One Theory

In GOA v. ATF, Judge James Wesley Hendrix granted a permanent injunction blocking the ATF from enforcing federal gun registration requirements — including Form 1 and Form 4 applications, fingerprinting, and photography mandates — against the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. The plaintiff lineup reads like a who's who of the industry: Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation, the Silencer Shop Foundation, Palmetto State Armory, SilencerCo, B&T USA, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, and a coalition of 15 states led by Texas.

The legal theory is simple, and it is the same one running through three related cases. For 90 years, the NFA's $200 tax was the constitutional hook: Congress justified registration through its taxing power. Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 zeroed out the transfer and making taxes. No tax, no taxing-power justification — and the government's attempt to fall back on the Commerce Clause failed. "Congress's choice to eliminate the transfer and making taxes matters," Judge Hendrix wrote, "and the defendants cannot save the NFA's regulatory scheme by referring to a power that Congress never invoked."

The same day, in Jensen v. ATF — a case backed by the Second Amendment Foundation with plaintiffs including CCRKBA, the FPC Action Foundation, the Texas Rifle Association, and Hot Shots Custom — a second judge ruled the remaining registration scheme for short-barreled rifles and suppressors unconstitutional. SAF has two more cases in the pipeline: Brown v. ATF, where SAF is a named plaintiff, and Roberts v. ATF. As SAF founder Alan Gottlieb put it, the removal of the $200 tax "offers the best opportunity to remove the NFA registration requirements that we've had in almost a century."

Read the Fine Print Before You Change Anything

Here is where a publisher earns his keep: do not rewrite your compliance manual yet. Three caveats matter.

First, the GOA injunction is stayed for seven days so the Justice Department can seek appellate review — and DOJ is expected to. GOA is already rallying members to oppose an appeal. Second, the injunction is party-scoped: it protects the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. That is a very large set of people in practice — GOA alone counts over two million members, and the corporate plaintiffs serve hundreds of thousands of customers — but it is not a nationwide injunction.

Third, and most importantly: a district court ruling is not the law of the land. The Fifth Circuit and eventually the Supreme Court will have their say, and the ATF will almost certainly ask for a stay pending appeal. For a dealer, the downside of acting early is losing your license; the downside of acting late is paperwork. Keep doing your 4473s. Keep filing your Forms. Watch the docket, not the hype.

The Supreme Court's Gun Docket Just Got Bigger

SCOTUSblog used the summer recess to recap a term that made Second Amendment history: for the first time since Heller, the Court decided more than one Second Amendment case in a single term. In United States v. Hemani, a unanimous Court held in June that the government cannot ban a person who uses marijuana from possessing a firearm. A week later, in Wolford v. Lopez, a 6-3 majority struck down Hawaii's law restricting firearms on private property open to the public, with Justice Alito using the opinion to sharpen the "plain text" first step of the Bruen framework.

What dealers should really care about is next term. On June 30, the Court granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, consolidated for review, to decide whether the Second Amendment protects the right to possess semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15s. That is the case that will define the rifle market for the next decade. The Court also declined to take up challenges to age-21 restrictions — though Justice Thomas noted he would have granted review in West Virginia Citizens Defense League v. ATF, which challenges the federal ban on commercial handgun sales to adults under 21.

States Are Digging In

Expect the patchwork to get patchier. New Jersey's assault weapons ban remains in effect while the state seeks Supreme Court review, according to the Jersey Vindicator. And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced new state gun-safety actions on July 30, explicitly framed as protecting New Yorkers from federal firearm regulation rollbacks. If you are within shouting distance of a state line, you are now running two different compliance regimes — and the gap between them is widening.

The Direct-to-Door Fight

Keep one eye on the distribution front. House Democrats are warning that a direct-to-door gun sales rule would endanger Americans, according to The Trace — the latest front in the battle over how firearms can reach consumers. If direct-to-door delivery is normalized at the federal level, it will reshape e-commerce sales and put pressure on brick-and-mortar FFLs to justify their transfer fees. It is a fight worth tracking closely.

Business Beat

Two retail stories worth your time. Dealers are reporting sales gains from the new Orchid POS and Gun Made integration, which pairs point-of-sale with an online catalog — the kind of systems-level win that moves real revenue. And a cautionary tale: the ghost gun company that took a $104 million verdict has vanished online, a reminder that legal exposure does not end when a company stops answering the phone. Compliance is a business asset, not a cost center.

The Bottom Line

Here is the honest read. The NFA survived for 92 years on a tax that Congress just repealed, and now courts are saying so out loud. That is genuine structural change — the kind that eventually reaches the counter. But "eventually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The smart dealer this month is the one who stays current, stays compliant, and stays ready to move when the appeals resolve. We will be watching the docket so you can watch your storefront.

— Fred Thompson, [email protected]