The NFA Is Dying – Is the Trump Admin Finally Done Trying to Save It?

For the first time in 92 years, Americans can buy suppressors – known to many as silencers – without awaiting permission or registering in accordance with the National Firearms Act of 1934, the nation’s first gun control law. The federal court ruling making this legal took effect at midnight on Thursday, August 13, 2026. And just after midnight, two gun-rights advocates made the first NFA-free suppressor purchases. But wait, there’s more. According to Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), the Trump administration confirmed Wednesday that the DOJ would not appeal the decision.

The NFA is dying – is the Trump administration finally done trying to save it?

The Purchase Heard ’Round the Nation

YouTube gun advocate and Texas congressional candidate Brandon Herrera and Lone Star State Rep. Wes Virdell bought the first suppressors from Silencer Shop in Leander, Texas. “This is the first time in 92 years that any gun owner has been able to do this,” Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston told Fox News Digital. “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.”

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Rep. Clyde, who helped craft the legislation that led to this case and ultimately this ruling, called it “literally the greatest Second Amendment win in the history of our country.” He added that it marked “a monumental day for the country and a monumental day for the Second Amendment.”

Rep. Clyde is certainly correct – especially when it comes to Texans or even Americans across the nation who are willing and able to do what needs to be done to be covered by the injunction. However, the ruling leaves much to be desired. It is, at best, only a solid first step in undoing one of the most egregious infringements on an allegedly uninfringeable right to keep and bear arms in this nation. Certainly, the NFA was the first successful federal gun control law, and without it, the others could never have followed.

A Death Knell for Federal Gun Control … Maybe?

In 1934, progressive, anti-gun Democrats held a trifecta of power in the Swamp. Out of that came the nation’s first federal gun control law: the National Firearms Act. Despite years of confusion by many Americans, however, it was never a ban on machine guns, suppressors, and the like. As Liberty Nation News explained last year when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed:

“When Congress passed the National Firearms Act in June of 1934, what Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law was not a ban on certain items, as many people seem to think. All involved understood that would be unconstitutional and that, even with anti-gun Democrats holding the trifecta of power in Washington, DC, it wouldn’t pass muster. Instead, a heavy (for the time) tax was imposed on these items, which, therefore, justified a registry to track who had paid said levies.”

Under this gun control bill disguised as a tax act, transferring ownership of machine guns, destructive devices, suppressors, short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), and short-barreled rifles (SBRs) required registration on a federal list and payment of a $200 fee. Now, that was in 1934 dollars. At the time, that would have been like charging just shy of $5,000, thanks to the roughly 2,400% inflation the dollar has suffered in the ensuing decades. This made such items prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of Americans – which was entirely the point.

Gun rights advocates and groups launched legal challenges to overturn the NFA before the ink of the president’s signature on the OBBA dried. And it was just last week they were finally vindicated – at least in part. On August 5 of this year, Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that, since the tax had been reduced to zero dollars, the remaining requirement to seek permission and register such items is unconstitutional.

“By zeroing out the transfer and making taxes for most NFA firearms, Congress eliminated the constitutional basis for the regulations that formerly supported the taxes for those firearms,” Judge Hendrix wrote in his opinion. “No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified—as they have been for nearly 90 years—under Congress’s taxing power.”

In his ruling, the judge built in a one-week delay to allow the DOJ to appeal – and it never did. Does this mean the Trump administration is finally going to let the NFA die? Maybe – then again, maybe not.

It Isn’t Dead Yet

As LNN’s Graham J Noble explained shortly after the ruling, it isn’t a nationwide injunction but a party-specific one. While it does cover all previously taxed items that are now duty free – suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and firearms falling under the “Any Other Weapon (AOW)” category – it does so only for the named plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. In other words, if you want to purchase one of these items without submitting the NFA registration (ATF Form 4), you have to buy from Silencer Shop or one of its affiliated dealers.

“The Department of Justice was given seven days to appeal the decision. Obviously, gun rights advocates are hoping it chooses not to,” Graham wrote on August 9. “Though the upside of such an appeal, for gun rights activists, would be an escalation to the Supreme Court, possibly setting the stage for the elimination of the NFA entirely – which has for decades been the goal of gun rights groups.”

And there lies the question: Is the Trump administration letting the nation’s oldest gun control act die by refusing to appeal this decision – or saving it, in part, by preventing further court action that might finally finish it off?