Federal judge strikes down gun registration rules in 15 states after Congress zeroed out NFA tax

A federal judge in Texas ruled that National Firearms Act registration requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and shotguns are unconstitutional, a decision Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach called a landmark victory for gun rights.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix permanently barred the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from enforcing NFA registration, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements against plaintiffs in 15 states, Newsmax reported. The ruling came after Congress, through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, reduced the NFA's transfer and manufacturing tax on those items to $0 beginning January 1, 2026, gutting the legal foundation the federal government had relied on for decades to justify the registration scheme.

Judge Hendrix, who sits in the Northern District of Texas, wrote plainly in his opinion: "The challenged NFA provisions are unconstitutional." He found that once the underlying tax dropped to zero, "the regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power." Without revenue, the registration mandate lost its constitutional anchor.

Kobach: 'No right to demand permission' for hearing protection

Kansas led the 15-state coalition that brought the challenge. Attorney General Kris Kobach framed the decision in practical terms, pointing to suppressors, devices that reduce the sound of a gunshot and are widely used by hunters and sport shooters to protect their hearing.

"Today, the state of Kansas and our fellow plaintiffs won a great victory against the U.S. Department of Justice, which had been wrongly defending an unconstitutional law. The federal government has no right to demand that American citizens ask for permission before putting an accessory on their firearm to protect their hearing."

Kobach also cast the ruling as a broader check on federal overreach. He said the Constitution "provides for a government of limited powers at the federal level" and warned that Americans "must always be vigilant to enforce those constitutional limits, especially when government overreach threatens the right of Americans to keep and bear arms."

The plaintiff states span a wide swath of the country: Kansas, Texas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Firearms manufacturers, retailers, advocacy organizations, and individual gun owners joined the states as co-plaintiffs.

The case, identified as Jensen v. ATF, was filed in October 2025 after Congress removed the $200 federal tax on suppressors and short-barrel rifles but left the NFA's registration requirements intact, Breitbart reported. Among the plaintiff organizations were the Texas State Rifle Association and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Judge rejected the DOJ's Commerce Clause backup argument

The Department of Justice tried to salvage the registration regime by arguing that even if the taxing power no longer applied, Congress could justify the requirements under its Commerce Clause authority, the constitutional provision that lets the federal government regulate interstate trade. Judge Hendrix rejected that argument. He found Congress enacted the NFA's registration provisions solely under its taxing power, not the Commerce Clause, and the government could not retroactively swap in a different constitutional basis.

That distinction matters. Had the court accepted the Commerce Clause theory, the federal government could have maintained the registration apparatus even without collecting a dime in tax revenue. Hendrix closed that door.

The ruling fits a broader pattern of courts pushing back against regulatory frameworks that lack clear constitutional footing. In Virginia, courts blocked a gun ban pushed by Democratic leadership as sheriffs and prosecutors refused to enforce it. And in California, the state has faced repeated legal setbacks over its attempts to restrict handgun ownership, including its argument that Glocks are "dangerous and unusual", a claim now under challenge by the Trump DOJ.

No nationwide injunction, and the 5th Circuit looms

Judge Hendrix declined to issue a nationwide injunction. He cited the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. CASA, which limits courts from issuing universal injunctions that bind the government with respect to nonparties. The practical result: the permanent injunction covers only the plaintiffs, residents of the 15 participating states, plus the named organizations and individuals.

For gun owners in the other 35 states, NFA registration requirements remain in force, at least for now.

The DOJ may appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Whether it will remains an open question. The department defended the NFA provisions throughout the litigation, and the stakes are high, if the 5th Circuit upholds Hendrix's reasoning, it could accelerate similar challenges across the country.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said the organization expects the precedent to carry weight beyond this single case. "With the tax no longer in existence, there was no logical reason for the ATF's registration requirement to continue," Gottlieb said. "With this victory setting a precedent, we anticipate success in the other cases involving our sister organization, SAF."

Courts across the country have increasingly served as a check on executive and legislative overreach, not only on firearms, but on issues from immigration enforcement to state-level social media regulations. The trend reflects a judiciary willing to hold the political branches to the text of the Constitution, even when the policies at issue have been in place for years.

Congress pulled the rug; the court swept up

Judge Hendrix ruled on Article I constitutional grounds, the limits of Congress's enumerated powers, and did not reach the Second Amendment claims raised by the plaintiffs. He found that the Article I ruling gave the plaintiffs the same practical relief they sought, making a Second Amendment analysis unnecessary.

That narrow approach may actually strengthen the ruling on appeal. By avoiding the politically charged terrain of the Second Amendment, Hendrix grounded his decision in structural constitutional law: Congress used its taxing power to justify the NFA's registration scheme, Congress then eliminated the tax, and without the tax, the scheme has no constitutional leg to stand on. The logic is clean.

Several questions remain unanswered. The ruling does not address what happens to existing NFA registrations already on file, or whether the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's $0 tax rate applies retroactively or only from January 1, 2026, forward. It also leaves unclear the exact scope of the injunction, whether it covers all residents of the 15 plaintiff states or only those individually named in the lawsuit. California's attorney general has already shown a willingness to sidestep court rulings on firearms, and other blue-state officials may look for similar workarounds if the precedent spreads.

For millions of law-abiding gun owners in those 15 states, though, the immediate effect is concrete: the ATF can no longer require them to register suppressors, short-barreled rifles, or short-barreled shotguns. A regulatory burden that dated back to 1934 has been lifted, not by executive fiat, but by a court enforcing the plain limits of the Constitution after Congress itself changed the underlying law.

When the government loses the power to tax something, it loses the power to make you beg for permission to own it. That principle ought to be simple enough for Washington to understand.