Gun rights groups fumed Friday after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a provision deregulating firearm silencers cannot be included in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Republican lawmakers sought to eliminate a $200 federal excise tax on silencers and remove them from registration requirements under the National Firearms Act, but the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, determined the measure did not comply with the Senate’s Byrd Rule, which prevents the inclusion of measures deemed “extraneous” to the budget process in reconciliation bills.
“The Parliamentarian’s ruling is total garbage,” Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said in a statement. “The [National Firearms Act] is explicitly a tax law. This partisan ruling is just another excuse to protect the unconstitutional tax-and-register regime of the NFA.”
Provisions that don’t directly affect spending or revenue, as interpreted by the parliamentarian, violate the Byrd Rule.
Brown urged senators to bypass the parliamentarian and include the silencer provision in the bill anyway.
“Any so-called ‘advisor’ who can’t see that a tax repeal is a budget item has no business telling Senators how to vote,” Brown said. “GOP leadership has one option: ignore the parliamentarian and override this nonsense. Anything less is surrender.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has indicated in the past that he’s unlikely to ignore the parliamentarian rulings.
Therefore, the provision, if not rewritten to comply with the Byrd Rule, would need 60 votes to make it out of the Senate, rather than a simple majority.
The National Rifle Association also slammed the parliamentarian, noting that she was appointed by the late Democratic Nevada Sen. Harry Reid.
“We strongly disagree with the Harry Reid-appointed Parliamentarian’s ruling that removing suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and other arms from the punitive NFA tax regime falls outside the scope of reconciliation,” the NRA said in a statement. “Nevertheless, we remain committed to working with our allies on Capitol Hill to end the unjust tax burden on these constitutionally-protected arms.”
Brown further argued that the Trump-backed bill is the “biggest chance” gun rights advocates have had in decades to “start tearing down the NFA.”
“It’s not over yet,” he said. “We expect pro-gun Senators to fight like hell, not cower and run for cover behind bureaucratic opinions.”
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