Several gun-owners’ rights groups and individuals have filed a motion for summary judgment in Brown v. ATF, asking a federal court to strike down and enjoin the government’s continued enforcement of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) requirements.
The plaintiffs asking for the judgment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis, include the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), two individual FPC members, Prime Protection STL, National Rifle Association of America (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and American Suppressor Association.
The motion for summary judgment argues that because Congress eliminated the making and transfer taxes on most NFA-regulated firearms in 2025, the NFA’s remaining registration and record-keeping mandates are now unconstitutional.
“That the NFA can no longer be justified as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power and is thus unconstitutional should be the end of this matter,” explained the challengers in their brief.
Even if the NFA is considered under the Commerce Clause, they say, “the Court should determine that the NFA is not constitutional on that basis either” because the NFA “is plainly not a regulation of the channels of interstate commerce or the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and it is not a regulation of intrastate commerce with substantial effects on interstate commerce.”
Moreover, the gun owners argue, “the NFA’s restrictions also constitute an unconstitutional regulatory scheme as pertains to suppressors and short-barreled rifles under the Second Amendment.”
The NFA was upheld in 1937 only as a taxing measure, but with no tax left to collect, its regulatory web no longer rests on any constitutional foundation. The filing further argues that the NFA’s restrictions on suppressors and short-barreled rifles (SBRs) are—and always have been—unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
Chris Brown is an individual plaintiff for whom the suit is named, and Allen Mayville is also an individual plaintiff.
The suit says, “Brown wants to transfer a Yankee Hill Machine Co. rifle suppressor that he lawfully owns to a friend who is a Missouri resident (who is lawfully able to own firearms) because it no longer suits his needs without complying with the NFA’s transfer provisions. He has had multiple opportunities in the recent past to sell this suppressor, but his would-be buyers declined to purchase it because of the need to go through the burdensome NFA registration process.”
The suit adds, “Mayville wants to acquire an additional suppressor for his firearms—a new BANISH 30-V2 suppressor—but has declined to do so because of the challenged NFA provisions. Mayville would acquire the suppressor within 30 days of the effective date of the $0 tax if it were not a violation of federal law to do so without complying with the challenged NFA provisions.”
“The NFA’s tax on most firearms is dead, and so is the excuse that kept this unconstitutional and immoral scheme alive,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “For generations, the federal government has forced peaceable Americans to be tracked in federal databases simply for owning tools protected by the Second Amendment. That era is over.”
“The National Firearms Act has been a weight around the neck of law-abiding gun owners for nearly a century,” said Knox Williams, President and Executive Director American Suppressor Association. “With the elimination of the excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs through the One Big Beautiful Bill, our lawsuit challenges the NFA as an unconstitutional registry of now-untaxed firearms.”
“The National Firearms Act has infringed on law-abiding Americans’ right to keep and bear arms for nearly a century,” said John Commerford, Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
Combs continued, “Congress built this law on its taxing power, and when that foundation collapsed, so did any claim of constitutional authority. What remains is nothing but a relic of fear and control—a law that survives only through bureaucratic inertia and intimidation. The Constitution is not a permission slip. The right to keep and bear arms is not contingent on paying tribute, registering property, or seeking government approval. The NFA’s days are numbered, and we intend to make sure its end marks a new chapter of freedom for every American who values liberty.”
“The National Firearms Act’s registration scheme only exists to ensure that the tax on NFA firearms was paid,” said Adam Kraut, SAF’s Executive Director. “With Congress removing the tax on silencers, short-barreled firearms, and ‘any other weapons,’ the continued inclusion of these items in the NFA serves no purpose, except continuing to retain an impermissible hurdle to the exercise of one’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
The brief in Brown v. ATF can be viewed here.
