Federal judge rules NFA registration unconstitutional after Congress zeroed out the gun tax

A federal judge in Texas has freed plaintiffs from the National Firearms Act's registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles, ruling the scheme lost its constitutional footing once Congress eliminated the $200 tax that held it up.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix handed down the ruling in Jensen v. ATF, a case filed in October 2025 by three individual gun owners, John Jensen, Jeremy Neusch, and David Lynn Smith, along with the Texas State Rifle Association and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA). The judge found the NFA's registration requirements "unconstitutional" now that the underlying tax no longer exists, Breitbart News reported, citing a CCRKBA press release in its possession.

The case strikes at a contradiction Congress created and never cleaned up. President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act zeroed out the $200 federal tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and other NFA-regulated weapons effective January 1, 2026. But lawmakers left the NFA registration requirements standing, meaning Americans still faced potential felony charges for possessing an unregistered suppressor or short-barreled rifle, even though the tax justifying the entire regulatory apparatus had vanished.

Judge Hendrix's 66-page opinion dismantles the ATF's authority

Judge Hendrix did not issue a brief order. His 66-page opinion in the consolidated cases of Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF concluded that the challenged NFA registration provisions exceed Congress's Article I authority once the tax was eliminated, the Washington Examiner reported. The NFA was built in 1934 as a taxing measure. Remove the tax, and the legal scaffolding collapses.

The CCRKBA and its co-plaintiffs pressed a straightforward argument: with the tax at zero, no justifiable basis for federal registration remained. The ATF could not point to an independent constitutional power to maintain the scheme. Judge Hendrix agreed.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb framed the decision as a precedent-setter:

"We are delighted with the ruling from Judge Hendrix. With the tax no longer in existence, there was no logical reason for the ATF's registration requirement to continue. With this victory setting a precedent, we anticipate success in the other cases involving our sister organization, SAF."

The Second Amendment Foundation, which Gottlieb referenced as CCRKBA's "sister organization," appears to be involved in parallel litigation that could extend this reasoning to additional plaintiffs and jurisdictions. Gottlieb did not name those cases specifically.

Scope of the ruling remains narrow, for now

The decision does not wipe the NFA registration requirement off the books nationwide. It applies to the named individual plaintiffs, the members and customers of the plaintiff organizations, and 15 plaintiff states involved in the consolidated case. Machine guns and destructive devices, which still carry the $200 tax, are unaffected.

That limited scope matters. Millions of Americans who own or want to purchase suppressors and short-barreled rifles remain technically subject to NFA registration until broader judicial action, or an act of Congress, resolves the gap. But the logic of Judge Hendrix's opinion is difficult for the government to contain. If the registration scheme lacks constitutional authority for these plaintiffs, it is hard to see how it survives for anyone else.

The ruling fits a broader pattern of federal courts reining in firearms regulations that exceed their constitutional foundations. A federal appeals court recently struck down New Jersey's AR-15 and magazine bans in a landmark Second Amendment decision, and the momentum has not slowed.

Jay Rogers, writing in the Washington Examiner, captured the absurdity Congress left behind:

"Congress wrote a regulatory scheme that depended entirely on a tax, then killed the tax and never asked what was left standing underneath it. A federal judge finally did the arithmetic."

Congress created the problem; a judge exposed it

The core issue is not complicated. For nearly a century, the NFA's registration requirements rode on the back of a federal tax. The tax gave Congress the constitutional hook, its Article I taxing power, to regulate suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and similar items. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated that tax, lawmakers never revisited the registration framework. They left a felony-backed regulatory scheme standing on nothing.

Gun owners faced a bizarre situation. They owed no tax. But they still had to register with the ATF or risk federal prosecution. The CCRKBA and its co-plaintiffs asked the obvious question: under what constitutional authority?

The Supreme Court has moved decisively in the same direction on Second Amendment questions in recent years. The high court unanimously struck down the federal gun ban for marijuana users in another landmark ruling, signaling that the judiciary is no longer willing to rubber-stamp firearms restrictions that lack solid constitutional grounding.

Rogers offered a pointed summary of the ATF's predicament:

"Hendrix just told the ATF that a foundation cracked in 1934 doesn't repair itself because everyone got used to walking on it."

That assessment cuts to the heart of the matter. Federal agencies often treat longstanding regulations as self-justifying, as though decades of enforcement create their own constitutional authority. Judge Hendrix rejected that reasoning.

ATF faces mounting legal setbacks

The ruling adds to a string of courtroom losses for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A federal court vacated a Biden-era ATF rule on private gun sales after the Department of Justice dropped its appeal, and the agency's regulatory posture has come under sustained judicial scrutiny.

The ATF has not publicly commented on the Jensen ruling, at least not in the available reporting. Whether the agency appeals remains an open question. So does the broader question of whether Congress will act to either restore the tax, repeal the registration requirement outright, or leave the contradiction in place for courts to resolve piecemeal.

Several important details remain unclear. The ruling's exact date has not been specified in the reporting. The constitutional grounds Judge Hendrix cited beyond the Article I taxing-power analysis are not fully detailed. And the identity of the consolidated case and its plaintiffs has not been disclosed publicly.

What is clear is the trajectory. Courts across the country have grown less tolerant of federal firearms regulations that rest on shaky legal ground, and the pattern of overreach being corrected on review extends well beyond gun cases.

Gottlieb and the CCRKBA plainly expect this ruling to open the door to similar outcomes in pending cases. If Judge Hendrix's reasoning holds on appeal, the NFA registration scheme for tax-zeroed items is finished, not because a court rewrote the Second Amendment, but because Congress pulled the one leg the whole structure stood on and walked away.

When lawmakers strip the tax but leave the felony, they are not protecting public safety. They are protecting a bureaucracy's jurisdiction. A federal judge finally said so.