Supreme Court Boosts NFA Suppressor Cases

The Second Amendment Foundation believes three Supreme Court decisions handed down this summer have significantly strengthened its federal lawsuits targeting what remains of the National Firearms Act.

Catch up quick:

• Congress eliminated the $200 NFA tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles through the One Big Beautiful Bill
• SAF argues that without the tax, the constitutional basis for NFA registration requirements collapses
• Three active federal lawsuits — Brown v. ATF, Jensen v. ATF, and Roberts v. ATF — are now pushing to eliminate those remaining registration requirements

State of play: The three new rulings SAF is leaning on are Landor, Wolford, and Hemani. Landor addresses limits on congressional taxing power — SAF's read is that no tax means no constitutional hook for a registration scheme built around that tax. Wolford and Hemani bear directly on the Second Amendment itself, and SAF argues they reinforce that suppressors and SBRs qualify as protected "arms" under the Constitution.

The legal question: That classification matters enormously. Once a firearm or accessory is recognized as a constitutionally protected arm, the burden shifts to the government to show its restrictions are consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation — the Bruen standard. That's a harder bar than it used to be.

"The Supreme Court's recent opinions are binding precedent that should strengthen our cases challenging the remaining NFA registration requirements." — Alan Gottlieb, SAF Founder

Between the lines: SAF isn't arguing the whole NFA is gone — they're making a narrower, sequenced case. Congress killed the tax. The tax was the constitutional scaffolding. What's left standing without the scaffolding? That's the question SAF is putting to federal judges.

Reality check: These cases are still working through the lower federal courts. No ruling has dropped yet. Judges will decide whether SAF's constitutional logic holds, and the government will fight back hard. This isn't a done deal — it's a legal argument that just picked up three new citations.

What to watch: How the district courts respond to the Landor/Wolford/Hemani arguments in the three active ATF cases. If even one court finds the registration requirement unsupported post-tax-repeal, the appeals process accelerates — and SCOTUS could eventually weigh in on the registration question directly.