Analysis: Why Gun Owners of America Says the New $0 National Firearms Tax is Unconstitutional

Gun Homeowners of America (GOA) and a coalition of different gun-rights advocates consider the brand new modifications to the Nationwide Firearms Act (NFA) make the legislation extra susceptible to a authorized problem. However what precisely does their just lately filed lawsuit argue?

On July 4th, President Donald Trump signed the brand new funds legislation, which slashes the $200 tax on the manufacture and switch of sure objects regulated by the NFA. On January 1, 2026, silencers, short-barrel rifles and shotguns, in addition to firearms within the “another weapon” class, will probably be topic to a paradoxical $0 tax. Nevertheless, anybody trying to purchase these objects will nonetheless need to show they paid that tax by handing over their fingerprints and footage to register every system with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

That’s the important thing sticking level for GOA’s coalition, which incorporates the Silencer Store Basis, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, B&T USA, SilencerCo, Palmetto State Armory, and the Gun Homeowners Basis. In a go well with they filed within the Fifth Circuit shortly after President Trump signed the legislation, they argue the actual fact the tax on the affected objects now not seeks to gather any income undermines the claimed congressional taxing energy the NFA rests on.

“Enacted in 1934, the Nationwide Firearms Act (“NFA”) is premised on Congress’s taxing energy,” the coalition wrote in GOA v. ATF. “The Act imposed a $200 tax (roughly $5,000 in as we speak’s {dollars}) on the manufacture and switch of explicit courses of firearms.”

With Congress decreasing the tax to $0 for silencers and the opposite objects, the coalition contends that the NFA can now not be thought-about a tax. As an alternative, it now capabilities solely as a set of federal restrictions and registration necessities for sure firearms, which aren’t instantly justified underneath any of Congress’s enumerated powers.

“However the NFA now not imposes any tax on the overwhelming majority of firearms it purports to control,” the grievance states. “The One Massive Lovely Invoice Act, which Congress and the President enacted on July 4, 2025, zeroes the manufacture and switch tax on practically all NFA-regulated firearms. Which means the constitutional basis on which the NFA rested has dissolved.”

They argue that the NFA’s constitutional legitimacy has all the time trusted its standing as a tax measure. They acknowledged that the congressional report signifies the NFA was initially justified solely as an train of the federal authorities’s authority to levy taxes.

“The NFA’s authors left little doubt that the NFA was an train of the taxing energy, and the Supreme Courtroom upheld it on that foundation,” the coalition wrote. “This has been the uncontroversial understanding of courts and commentators for practically a century.”

The coalition pointed to the Supreme Courtroom upholding the NFA underneath the taxing authority concept in 1937’s Sonzinsky v. United States.

“Right here part 2 accommodates no regulation apart from the mere registration provisions, that are clearly supportable as in support of a income function,” the Courtroom wrote. “On its face it’s only a taxing measure, and we’re requested to say that the tax, by advantage of its deterrent impact on the actions taxed, operates as a regulation which is past the congressional energy… Each tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent, it interposes an financial obstacle to the exercise taxed as in contrast with others not taxed. However a tax isn’t any the much less a tax as a result of it has a regulatory impact.”

The coalition asserted that the NFA’s rules on the manufacture and switch of things taxed at $0 now exceed Congress’s enumerated taxing energy, as they now not serve the aim of income assortment. The Supreme Courtroom’s Sonzinsky resolution particularly upheld the NFA as a tax, they observe, and, because the sections with a zeroed-out tax now not search to gather income, the logic underpinning the constitutionality of the NFA now not holds.

The plaintiffs cited the Supreme Courtroom’s 1935 resolution in United States v. Constantine to bolster their argument. That case focuses on the validity of a taxing provision by inspecting whether or not it intends to supply income. In Constantine, the Courtroom struck down a liquor tax as a result of it decided the exorbitant price ticket resembled extra of a “penalty” fairly than a tax meant to supply income.

“If the [tax] had been mounted in quantity in accordance with the significance of the enterprise or supposed potential to pay, the exaction in query is very exorbitant,” the Courtroom wrote. “This truth factors within the course of a penalty, fairly than a tax.”

Moreover, the Courtroom argued the “validity” of taxes “laid to lift income” is “past query.” Nevertheless, it decided the particular liquor tax was as an alternative imposed as a roundabout type of legal punishment.

“We conclude that the indicia which the part displays of an intent to ban and to punish violations of state legislation as such are too robust to be disregarded, take away all semblance of a income act, and stamp the sum it exacts as a penalty,” the Courtroom wrote. “On this view, the statute is a transparent invasion of the police energy, inherent within the states, reserved from the grant of powers to the federal authorities by the Structure.”

The GOA coalition cited Constantine to argue the identical idea: as the federal government has eliminated the $200 tax from the NFA, it has revealed that the aim behind the opposite rules is to not produce income. Due to this fact, it can’t be upheld by way of Congress’s taxing authority.

“With respect to the untaxed firearms, the Act is now unconstitutional,” the coalition wrote. “The One Massive Lovely Invoice Act left undisturbed the NFA’s registration necessities and restrictions on manufacture and switch, which for many NFA firearms now lack any accompanying train of Congress’s taxing energy.”

The coalition additionally asserted “[T]he NFA can’t be upheld underneath another Article I energy,” however didn’t elaborate additional on that declare.

The remainder of the coalition’s submitting focuses on establishing standing to deliver a go well with towards the NFA’s newly rewritten sections. They every declare the remaining NFA rules create related, although distinct, harms to them.

As an example, particular person plaintiff Brady Wetz claims that he would purchase the newly untaxed NFA objects if it weren’t for the remaining NFA rules. He argues the registration necessities are an invasion of privateness and take an unpredictable period of time to finish.

“Mr. Wetz objects to this onerous registration requirement, which requires the gathering of non-public data akin to that obtained from a person being arrested and charged with a criminal offense,” the coalition wrote in its grievance. “Amassing and offering this NFA registration data as a precondition to lawful possession and possession imposes a big regulatory burden on gun homeowners like Mr. Wetz. For instance, as a way to register an NFA-regulated merchandise, Mr. Wetz should spend time finishing software types promulgated by ATF, after which await ATF to difficulty an approval dedication, enter his registration data, and authorize his possession of the NFA regulated merchandise.”

For its half, GOA additionally argues some variety of its members would purchase the untaxed objects if it weren’t for the remaining NFA rules.

“GOA has greater than 2 million members and supporters throughout the nation, together with tens of 1000’s inside Texas, a lot of whom reside inside this district,” the group wrote within the submitting. “Many of those individuals want to buy, acquire, make, or in any other case possess, and switch NFA regulated shortbarreled firearms and silencers, and they might accomplish that however for the NFA’s onerous federal registration requirement. Different GOA members and supporters at the moment personal NFA-registered firearms, however they object to the federal authorities’s continued retention of their registration data.”

Like the opposite companies within the coalition, SilencerCo argued the NFA restrictions impare its potential to promote silencers. The corporate, which is among the largest silencer makers within the nation, mentioned the remaining rules burden its potential to achieve new clients.

“By advantage of the continued federal registration requirement for firearm silencers, SilencerCo suffers a restricted market and artificially restricted gross sales,” it wrote. “Certainly, SilencerCo has heard from many potential clients who’ve indicated that their sole deterrent from buying one in all SilencerCo’s merchandise is the federal registration requirement.”

The lawsuit raises just a few main questions for the courts: Are the members of GOA’s coalition harmed sufficient by the NFA’s remaining rules on silencers and the wish to deliver a go well with? In that case, is a $0 tax actually nonetheless a tax that’s correctly levied underneath Congress’s taxing energy? If not, does another constitutional authority permit Congress to impose the remaining NFA rules on the untaxed units?

This isn’t the one lawsuit arising out of the NFA’s new language, although. The Nationwide Rifle Affiliation, Second Modification Basis, American Suppressor Affiliation, and Firearms Coverage Coalition have promised to deliver their very own go well with. Nevertheless, that go well with has not been filed but, and the precise authorized arguments they plan to make use of aren’t public.

How the courts reply the questions raised by GOA’s coalition and the opposite gun-rights teams will decide the way forward for rules surrounding silencers, short-barrel firearms, and the “another weapon” class of weapons.