Gun-Control Groups Back DOJ in Silencer, Short-Barrel Rifle Case

The Trump Administration simply obtained help from the nation’s prime gun-control teams in its effort to defend the constitutionality of the Nationwide Firearms Act (NFA).

On Thursday, a coalition of gun-control teams filed an amicus temporary backing the Division of Justice (DOJ) in its combat towards gun-rights activists who need the NFA overturned. Everytown for Gun Security, the Giffords Legislation Middle, and the Brady Middle to Forestall Gun Violence all signed on to a quick defending the newly amended NFA in Gun House owners of America v. ATF.  Mirroring a lot of what the DOJ argued in its personal temporary, the teams argued the NFA stays good legislation regardless of Congress lately slicing a few of its switch taxes on objects like silencers and short-barrel rifles to $0.

“[T]he NFA as an entire nonetheless raises income, Congress left the tax construction in place, and Congress could require recordkeeping earlier than making or transferring a coated article to make sure the integrity of the tax base,” the teams wrote in a GOA v. ATF temporary. “Thus, the registration provisions are reputable regulatory measures ‘in support of a income objective.’”

The temporary represents one of many few instances that gun-control activists have discovered themselves on the identical facet as President Donald Trump. It might assist the DOJ defend the NFA in courtroom. It might additionally assist drive a wedge additional between the Trump Administration and gun-rights activists on a problem the place a break up is already obvious.

The Gun House owners of America (GOA) coalition that filed the go well with consists of the Silencer Store Basis, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, B&T USA, SilencerCo, Palmetto State Armory, and the Gun House owners Basis. They, in addition to one other coalition of gun-rigths teams that filed the same case towards the legislation, argued the most recent tax cuts fatally undermine the constitutional construction of the NFA.

“However the NFA now not imposes any tax on the overwhelming majority of firearms it purports to control,” the criticism states. “The One Huge 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 Congress explicitly used its taxing energy to enact and implement the NFA.

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

Since a lot of the legislation now not even makes an attempt to generate income, they are saying, it could possibly’t be a legitimate train of the taxing energy.

“With respect to the untaxed firearms, the Act is now unconstitutional,” the coalition wrote. “The One Huge 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 gun-control teams, with a nod to the DOJ’s argument, responded to the gun-rights teams by claiming the NFA does nonetheless generate some income. They stated it remained a constitutional train of Congress’s taxing energy.

“As the federal government’s temporary persuasively establishes, though Congress diminished sure making and switch taxes to zero, the statute continues to boost income elsewhere: it requires producers and sellers of things coated by the Act to pay a particular occupational tax,” the gun-control teams wrote. “It additionally continues to impose making and switch taxes on different NFA objects, comparable to machine weapons and harmful units, which generate income. The Act’s registration necessities are important to securing this federal income.”

That mirrors DOJ’s personal argument that the weapons impacted by the most recent cuts nonetheless “do produce federal tax income and the challenged NFA’s necessities help the gathering of that income.” However the gun-control teams went even additional. They argued the Supreme Court docket has established Congress’s taxing energy is huge, and covers the entire objections the gun-rights plaintiffs have with the NFA’s new $0 taxes.

“The Supreme Court docket has by no means required that each part of a tax scheme generate income; on the contrary, it has historically deferred to Congress whether or not a measure is a tax as long as it retains the structural options of 1,” the gun-control teams wrote. “Nor does a tax stop to be legitimate merely as a result of ‘it regulates, discourages, and even undoubtedly deters the actions taxed.’ This precept applies even when ‘the income obtained is clearly negligible or the income objective of the tax could also be secondary.’ Accordingly, Congress’s resolution to set sure charges to zero—whereas preserving the registration necessities and the statutory construction codified within the Inner Income Code—doesn’t alter the statute’s constitutional character.”

The GOA coalition additionally asserted “[T]he NFA can’t be upheld beneath another Article I energy,” however didn’t elaborate additional on that declare. The gun-control teams closely disputed that concept of their temporary. They argued Congress additionally relied on its energy to control interstate commerce, one other authority the teams stated the Supreme Court docket had interpreted very broadly, to institute the NFA.

“Though Congress in the end emphasised the sufficiency of the taxing energy as authority to safe the invoice’s passage, it additionally acknowledged the Commerce Clause as one other foundation for the laws,” the teams wrote. “From the outset, the federal government defined that it was continuing beneath ‘two powers,’ invoking the Commerce Clause to deal with the fact that armed criminals ‘go quickly from State to State,’ and that the ‘fast’ interstate motion of those weapons ‘ha[d] grow to be an actual menace to the law-abiding individuals of this nation.’”

Finally, the gun-control teams got here to the identical conclusion in regards to the NFA’s constitutionality because the DOJ. Each argued the legislation is in keeping with historic rules on “harmful and strange” weapons and a justifiable train of a number of Congressional powers–and an train that presents a comparatively low burden on gun house owners.

“Because the Supreme Court docket has constantly noticed, American legislatures have lengthy ‘prohibited the carrying of harmful and strange weapons,’” the DOJ wrote in its GOA v. ATF temporary. “Legal guidelines courting again to the Founding Period focused, by outright bans or lesser regulation, significantly harmful weapons that have been uniquely prone to legal misuse. Equally, many states have lengthy regulated the scale of firearms. The NFA suits inside that historic custom by concentrating on significantly harmful weapons that ‘may very well be used readily and effectively by criminals,’ although its necessities are way more modest than the explicit bans of the previous.”

“When Congress enacted the Nationwide Firearms Act and the President signed it into legislation, Congress decided that silencers, short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, and machine weapons represented particularly harmful weapons that pose a definite risk to public security as a result of they’re simply concealable and exceptionally deadly,” the gun-control teams wrote. “To deal with these dangers, Congress—performing beneath its Commerce Clause authority and taxing energy—created a complete regulatory framework that allows lawful possession whereas imposing registration and associated necessities to raised hint these weapons, deter their use in violent crimes, and forestall their diversion into the illicit market. When Congress later adjusted sure NFA tax provisions, it intentionally preserved that framework, recognizing the continuing hurt these weapons have brought on, together with their use in mass shootings, terrorist assaults, and different violent crimes. All of this falls nicely inside Congress’s constitutional authority.”