Gun Owners of America and Silencer Shop executed the first lawful suppressor transfers without National Firearms Act registration since 1934, a move made possible by a federal judge's ruling that the law's constitutional basis collapsed when Congress zeroed out its tax.
Just after midnight on Thursday, Brandon Herrera and Texas state Rep. Wes Virdell walked out of Silencer Shop in Leander, Texas, each carrying a suppressor they had acquired without submitting to the NFA's registration and approval process. Until days earlier, that act would have carried a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per violation. Fox News Digital reported that the midnight transfers marked the first time in more than nine decades any gun owner had done so lawfully.
The transfers followed an August 5 ruling by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, who permanently blocked federal officials from enforcing the NFA's challenged registration and approval requirements against the plaintiffs, Gun Owners of America, the Silencer Shop Foundation, and others, along with their members and customers. Fifteen states later joined the legal challenge.
The legal chain of events began with President Trump's signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which reduced the NFA's longstanding $200 making and transfer tax to $0 for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other weapons, effective January 1, 2026. GOA and the Silencer Shop Foundation sued the federal government the same day Trump signed the law, arguing that once the tax disappeared, the registration regime built on Congress's taxing power had no constitutional leg left.
Judge Hendrix agreed. For nearly 90 years, courts had upheld the NFA as a valid exercise of Congress's taxing authority. But with the tax set at zero, the Washington Examiner noted, that foundation gave way. Hendrix wrote plainly in his ruling:
"No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified, as they have been for nearly 90 years, under Congress's taxing power."
He added a pointed instruction to Washington: "Efforts to render the NFA constitutional must come from Congress, not this Court."
The Justice Department had countered during litigation that remaining NFA regulations could still be supported by other NFA taxes and by Congress's authority over interstate commerce. Hendrix rejected that argument. He did, however, decline to issue a nationwide injunction, limiting his order to the plaintiffs and their members and customers. He also declined to rule on the plaintiffs' separate Second Amendment challenge to the NFA's registration requirements, a question that gun rights advocates clearly intend to press in future cases.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who helped write the legislation zeroing out the NFA tax, said Wednesday that the Trump administration confirmed the Justice Department would not appeal Hendrix's ruling. Just The News reported that Clyde framed the decision as a deliberate choice by the administration to let the ruling stand.
That confirmation opened the door for GOA and Silencer Shop to act. On Thursday, the two organizations notified the Trump administration of their plans to begin transferring suppressors without NFA registration. Hours later, Herrera and Virdell made the first purchases.
The broader legal landscape on firearms is shifting fast. A federal appeals court recently struck down New Jersey's semiautomatic rifle ban, and the DOJ itself has filed lawsuits against states it accuses of violating the Second Amendment, all part of a widening push to roll back gun restrictions through the courts.
Aidan Johnston, GOA's director of federal affairs, told Fox News Digital that the significance of the ruling goes well beyond suppressors. He laid out the legal logic in practical terms:
"Congress didn't fully repeal the law. They just reduced this 1934 tax from $200 to $0. And I think all of us could understand there's no such thing as a $0 tax. It doesn't raise any revenue. It's not a tax."
Johnston also emphasized the stakes that had been on the line for gun owners before the ruling.
"Previously, this would have been punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per violation. So, this was a big federal law. We took a really big bite out of it."
Clyde, who attended the midnight transfers in person, did not understate his view of the moment. He called the ruling "literally, the greatest Second Amendment win in the history of our country" and said it marked "a monumental day for the country and a monumental day for the Second Amendment."
Erich Pratt, GOA's senior vice president, struck a similar tone but pointed forward. He said GOA had fought to dismantle the NFA's restrictions through the One Big Beautiful Bill and then pressed the fight in court when Congress left the registration requirements on the books.
"GOA fought to crush the NFA's unconstitutional restrictions through the One Big Beautiful Bill, but we didn't stop there. We promised to keep fighting until these restrictions were gone, and now our members are putting the historic victory into action."
Pratt added a broader declaration: "The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end."
That ambition extends beyond this single case. AP News reported that gun rights groups hope to take the underlying legal questions to the Supreme Court, where a favorable ruling could remove NFA registration requirements nationwide rather than just for the plaintiffs covered by Hendrix's injunction. The Second Amendment Foundation said the ruling "will set a precedent we can now argue in courts across the country to allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear of being placed on some government registry."
Meanwhile, the Seventh Circuit's split decision upholding Illinois's semiautomatic weapons ban has created exactly the kind of circuit conflict that often draws Supreme Court review, a dynamic that could accelerate the timeline for a definitive high court ruling on firearms regulations.
The legal fight grew partly out of frustration with Congress. During the 2025 reconciliation process, Republicans initially pushed for a broader rollback of NFA restrictions on suppressors and short-barreled firearms. The Senate parliamentarian blocked portions of that effort under reconciliation rules, which limit what provisions can be included in budget legislation. What survived was the tax reduction, zeroing out the $200 making and transfer tax, but not a full repeal of the NFA's registration framework.
GOA and its allies treated the gap between the tax elimination and the surviving registration requirements as a constitutional vulnerability and sued the same day Trump signed the bill. The speed of the litigation, from filing to permanent injunction, reflected a coordinated legal strategy designed to capitalize on the opening Congress created.
Breitbart identified the case as Jensen v. ATF and reported that the Trump DOJ chose not to appeal within the seven-day window, allowing the ruling to take effect on August 13, 2026. Silencer Shop completed the first lawful, unregistered suppressor transfer at 12:01 a.m. CDT that morning.
Standard federal background checks still apply to suppressor purchases. The ruling removes the additional NFA layer, the registration, the approval process, and the tax stamp that had been required since 1934. For gun owners covered by the injunction, buying a suppressor now works like buying any other legal firearm.
The DOJ's own twin lawsuits against California and Virginia over gun restrictions signal that the administration views Second Amendment enforcement as a priority, not just a concession to allied litigants.
Hendrix's decision carries real limits. Because he declined to issue a nationwide injunction, the ruling applies only to GOA's members, Silencer Shop's customers, and the other plaintiffs. Gun owners outside those groups cannot yet transfer suppressors without NFA registration based on this ruling alone.
Whether the DOJ or ATF will issue formal guidance extending the ruling's logic more broadly remains unclear. So does the question of whether the ruling's reasoning applies equally to short-barreled rifles and shotguns, which also saw their NFA taxes reduced to zero under the same legislation.
And the Supreme Court's upcoming term already includes major firearms cases, raising the possibility that the high court could weigh in on NFA registration sooner than many expected.
The New York Post noted that the midnight transfers carried both legal and symbolic weight, a concrete demonstration that a 92-year-old regulatory regime can unravel once the tax that justified it disappears.
For nine decades, the federal government told gun owners they needed permission to buy a suppressor, and backed that demand with the threat of prison. A single act of Congress, one federal judge, and a Justice Department that chose not to fight changed that overnight. The question now is how far the precedent travels.
