Gun-rights groups are split over the Trump administration defending federal firearm registration requirements in court — even as the law’s tax basis crumbles.
The Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to grant summary judgment in a lawsuit challenging the National Firearms Act (NFA), which requires registration and payment for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other weapons.
The fight stems from a reconciliation bill President Donald Trump signed into law in July 2025. That legislation slashed the NFA tax on those items to $0 after Senate rules blocked full repeal. Pro-gun groups now argue the zero-dollar tax guts the law’s constitutional foundation — but Trump’s DOJ is defending it anyway.
Gun Owners of America is suing in federal court in Texas.
“The Department of Justice is defending a law that has no basis in the Constitution, its text, or our nation’s history.”
Gun Owners of America Senior Vice President Erich Pratt told the Daily Caller News Foundation the administration is “wasting taxpayer dollars defending an unpopular and unconstitutional law.”
“Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars defending an unpopular and unconstitutional law, the Administration should have sided with the plaintiffs and acknowledged that the NFA violates the Second Amendment,” Pratt said.
But a top Trump Justice official pushed back on the criticism in a June interview.
“I understand people have policy differences with DOJ’s enforcement of federal laws, but, in my opinion, and I’ve said this to many gun groups, the appropriate place to launch those policy discussions is in Congress, not with us,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said.
Dhillon noted the DOJ regularly defends laws even when officials personally disagree with them.
Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director Adam Kraut took a measured view.
“Ultimately it is Congress’ job to pass laws, the Executive Branch’s job to enforce them and the federal courts’ job to interpret their constitutionality,” Kraut said.
“One only need to look to the Biden Administration for an example, where Biden’s DOJ defended the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act despite his personal disdain for the law,” Kraut continued.
“While we disagree with how the administration has defended the NFA we are cognizant of the position it is in. The situation only reinforces why it’s so critical for organizations like SAF to continue to litigate these issues in court to hold the Government accountable.”
The National Rifle Association, Second Amendment Foundation, and Firearms Policy Coalition laid out the constitutional argument in their complaint filed in August 2025 in Brown v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“Congress passed the NFA explicitly premised on its enumerated power to ‘lay and collect Taxes,’ and the Supreme Court upheld provisions of the NFA on that basis, holding that the NFA was ‘only a taxing measure’ and that the registration provisions were ‘obviously supportable as in aid of a revenue purpose,'” the groups argued.
The DOJ is arguing that to exercise a constitutional right, you must first get government permission.
On what authority?
Rights preexist government, and the NFA is unconstitutional. Full stop. FPC is litigating Brown v. ATF to end this permit regime once and for all. pic.twitter.com/N9N08ZZ4Sh
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) July 31, 2026
“That constitutional basis, however, has recently been eliminated with respect to the making, transferring, and receiving of several items which are defined as ‘firearms’ by the NFA, including suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns, thus making the NFA’s restrictions on those items unconstitutional as applied to those arms,” the complaint states.
The DOJ has successfully argued in several cases that the NFA operates like a “shall issue” concealed-carry permit law — a framing gun-rights groups reject.
The legal showdown puts Trump’s DOJ in the position of defending a registration scheme Second Amendment advocates have challenged for decades — even as the tax justification that once sustained it in court vanishes.
