On August 9 in Short-barreled rifles are finally legal—sort of—maybe… I wrote about a recent decision by a Texas federal judge striking down portions of the 1934 National Firearms Act. That act was written under congressional taxing powers, but when President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill eliminated that tax for NFA items, the lawful basis for requiring registration of short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and suppressors vanished. In effect, the constitutional basis of the NFA disappeared.
Read more Bypassing the strait?
Graphic: X Post
The catch is the judge’s injunction, which hasn’t yet been appealed by the DOJ but might be, applies only to the parties to the suit and certain manufacturers and dealers in those states that were parties to the suit. The Supreme Court has ruled out nationwide injunctions by activist leftist judges, restricting them only to the parties at hand in lawsuits. That’s a good thing, not that some of those rogue judges are paying attention.
While I confined that article to short-barreled rifles and shotguns, many Americans have considered the injunction an opportunity to buy suppressors without government registration and permission. However, suppressors are still treated like firearms, so a Form 4473 and a federal computer check are still required; there is still a paper trail. At my home blog, I went into greater detail, including listing the parties—which includes 15 states– technically covered under the injunction. I ended that article with this warning:
So, buy an SBR, short-barreled shotgun, or suppressor now while you can, possibly without being entered into a federal database? Caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. Until the law itself is entirely, nationally, struck down and/or completely repealed by Congress, you’re relying on the honor, word, and ethics of princes and bureaucrats.
That’s virtually always a bad bet.
Graphic: X Post
At The Truth About Guns, Scott Witner relayed a Second Amendment lawyer’s warning about the intentions of DOJ and ATF bureaucrats should Democrats/Communists seize power.
In a recent video — “Lawyer Warns: ATF Is Going Full Revenge Mode?” — he relayed what he says he’s hearing in off-the-record conversations with people who have contacts inside ATF and DOJ: the ideological, anti-gun faction within those agencies is privately promising a reckoning. Not today. Later — the next time their side is back in power. And the target, he says, is precisely the paper trail being generated right now by every registration-free suppressor transfer.
Take the link for the 10:30 video.
The deep state yet exists, and its operatives are in every federal agency, doing what they can during the Trump Administration to slow-roll and sabotage Trump’s every gain for individual liberty, and waiting for the freedom a Democrat Administration will give them to get revenge on Normal Americans who think they have constitutional rights. They’re particularly filled with rage over gun rights.
His [the anonymous lawyer’s] blunt framing: they won’t care what the guidance said, and they won’t care much what some judge ruled. Even a case they ultimately lose still costs the defendant years and a fortune in legal bills. As the old courthouse adage goes, you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride. “The process is the punishment,” he says — and there would be a lot of process to go around.
Read more Your next blue city DSA mayor?
Just as I warned, Americans shouldn’t rely on the honor or adherence to the Constitution of resentful federal bureaucrats.
The reason the warning exists is that we’ve watched enforcement intensity swing with the change of administrations every 4 years. Under the Biden administration, ATF’s “zero tolerance” inspection policy drove FFL license revocations from a handful a year to record highs — from single digits in 2021 to well over 100 a year in 2023 and 2024, in many cases over paperwork. The current DOJ rescinded that policy in April 2025, stood up a Second Amendment Task Force, and by 2026 had folded it into a broader package of pro-gun rule changes.
Same statutes. Same forms. Wildly different posture — entirely because the leadership changed. And when ATF wants to turn enforcement on ordinary owners, it has shown it will: recall the agency’s mass Form 1 disapprovals aimed at homemade silencers. Now apply that swing to the several hundred thousand people who took possession of unregistered suppressors during a specific window, and you understand why the attorney’s sources think there’s a target-rich environment waiting.
Take the link and read the whole thing. The ultimate problem is that these welcome changes are only a legal ruling from a single federal judge. The NFA still largely exists, and Congress still has to act. Even when Republicans had a past substantial majority, they weren’t moved to deal with the NFA. And this is the Congress that can’t pass the SAVE Act, with such overwhelming and rare public approval.
Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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