A federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday that a strict permitting process for short-barreled guns and suppressors under the National Firearms Act was unconstitutional because Republicans in Congress had removed a $200 tax for a permit.
Without the tax, Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas wrote, Congress had no legal basis to impose permit requirements for the weapons.
Gun rights groups and gun manufacturers, many of whom had filed and supported the lawsuit, immediately claimed a major victory, while gun-control lobbyists said the ruling would in effect deregulate dangerous firearms and accessories that had been restricted since 1934.
Judge Hendrix, who was appointed by President Trump, paused his ruling for a week to allow the defendant in the case, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a chance to appeal.
The Justice Department, which oversees the A.T.F., did not immediately say whether it would appeal the ruling. Gun advocacy groups were already pressuring the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Wednesday afternoon to allow the ruling to stand.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 instituted a tax-and-registration requirement for rifles and shotguns with short barrels, as well as for suppressors, which are devices fitted onto the barrel of a gun to muffle gunshots. The law, written as the country reeled from Prohibition-era organized crime and an attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, was aimed at restricting weapons that were deemed to be suited for violent crime.
Millions of these restricted weapons and accessories are sold every year under the current restrictions, according to A.T.F. data. The $200 tax was designed to be prohibitively expensive in 1934 dollars. But in 2026, the tax is less onerous when compared to the cost of a modern firearm or suppressor.
House Republicans added a provision eliminating the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles when they passed Mr. Trump’s major spending bill last year.
Soon after, gun advocacy groups filed several lawsuits seeking to further weaken the law, arguing that its registration process, which requires buyers to submit their fingerprints and seek A.T.F. approval, was unconstitutional without the tax component.
Judge Hendrix agreed with that argument, ruling in a 66-page order that because the law no longer generated revenue, “its regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power” given to Congress in Article 1 of the Constitution.
Gun rights groups — many of whom were party to the lawsuit — and gun manufacturers said the ruling was a significant victory for the Second Amendment. Some of the groups said it was a step toward their longer-term goal of eliminating the National Firearms Act.
“We cannot wait to fully and finally eliminate this unconstitutional scheme so people can exercise their rights when, where and how they choose,” Brandon Combs, the president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, said in a statement.
Gun control groups that opposed the lawsuit in court criticized the ruling, asserting that the judge’s order had effectively deregulated some of the most dangerous guns and accessories.
Adam Skaggs, the chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center, said that “for nearly 100 years, Congress has required background checks, registration and oversight before someone could buy a silencer, short-barreled rifle, or short-barreled shotgun.” He added that removing those requirements came “at the expense of the safety of every American.”
Kris Brown, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement that a majority of Americans were not asking for the law to be gutted. Instead, she said, “an extreme, outspoken few” in government were “working on behalf of corporate profits when they should be upholding their fundamental duty to public safety.”
“Nearly 100 years ago, following the horror of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and a wave of gangland Tommy gun shootouts, our country — with the support of even the N.R.A. — banded together to draw a clear line and regulate these tools of war,” she said.
Suppressors, sometimes called silencers, were once a niche accessory for civilian gun owners, associated with Hollywood hit men but rarely seen in general use or real-life murders. Their popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, as more gun owners use them to prevent brain injuries and hearing damage. There are millions in circulation. A private citizen who was credited with saving lives after shooting back at a gunman in Idaho last week was armed with a pistol fitted with a suppressor.
Aishvarya Kavi contributed reporting.
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