“When President Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill — which will eliminate the excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs — he will have delivered the biggest blow to the National Firearms Act since its passage nearly a century ago.” That’s how the NRA, American Suppressor Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation put it in their joint announcement, a statement that’s already echoing across the firearms community.
For many Second Amendment advocates, this moment marks a seismic shift in federal gun policy. The excise tax—$200 since 1934—on items like suppressors and short-barreled rifles has long been a sticking point, both as a financial barrier and a symbol of government overreach. With the House passing the bill and Trump’s signature expected any day, the tax will drop to zero, a change that Rep. Andrew Clyde called a restoration of rights after “over 90 years of draconian taxes,” according to PBS.
The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 was born out of the Prohibition era’s gangland violence, introducing not just taxes but a federal registry for certain firearms—machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and silencers. Compliance has always meant registering these firearms with the federal government and submitting to detailed background checks, a process that’s both time-consuming and, for many, intrusive. The $200 tax was a significant sum in 1934, and its staying power has made it a perennial target for reformers. As Masterson Hall notes, the NFA’s combination of tax and registry has been both a cornerstone of gun control and a lightning rod for constitutional debate.
But the new bill does more than cut costs. It sets the stage for a direct constitutional challenge to the NFA itself. The NRA and its allies have announced a federal lawsuit aiming to “dismantle the NFA once and for all.” John Commerford, NRA-ILA executive director, wrote, “This is just the beginning.” The legal argument draws on recent Supreme Court decisions, especially the Court’s embrace of a broad reading of the Second Amendment in cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In Heller, Justice Scalia wrote that the Second Amendment protects “an individual right to possess guns and to use them for traditionally lawful purposes.” And Bruen’s new framework has already led to a wave of challenges—more than 450 decisions in the year after Bruen, with courts upholding gun laws in 88% of cases, according to GIFFORDS Law Center.
Still, not everyone in the NRA is celebrating. Some members warn that removing the tax but keeping the registry could turn the NFA into a pure registry law, which the Supreme Court has previously found constitutionally questionable. One member pointed out, “in 1934 the Supreme Court ruled that the NFA is basically only constitutional because it’s a tax and not a registry… If the tax levy is waived, then it is no longer a tax and now becomes a registry. This is not something to celebrate, this is something that requires immediate lawsuits to be filed.”
The legal road ahead is complex. The Supreme Court’s recent rulings have affirmed the right to own “commonly used firearms” and suggested that regulations must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition. The NRA’s new lawsuit will likely argue that registration and taxation of common arms like short-barreled rifles and suppressors lack historical precedent, as Doug Hamlin, NRA Executive Vice President, has emphasized in the group’s Supreme Court petition in Rush v. United States (NRA-ILA).
As the legislative and legal battles unfold, the bill’s passage is already being hailed by supporters as a historic win for gun owners and a direct challenge to the regulatory legacy of the NFA. For opponents, concerns remain about public safety and the potential impact on law enforcement’s ability to track dangerous weapons. But for those who have spent decades fighting the NFA’s tax and registry, this is a moment that many believed would never come.
