A Texas ruling on August 5, 2026, finds that Congress removed the constitutional foundation for federal registration and approval rules covering suppressors and short-barreled firearms thus striking down the requirement that individuals register the transfers of those firearms with the ATF. But, not in Tennessee.
Congress enacted the National Firearms Act, or NFA, in 1934 under its constitutional power to tax. For most of the law’s history, a person who transferred or privately made a NFA firearm had to pay a $200 federal tax. The NFA uses “firearm” as a uniquely defined legal term that includes suppressors, called “silencers” in federal law, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, machineguns, destructive devices, and a narrow group called “any other weapons,” or AOWs.
The tax came with an extensive federal system for registration of those items. A transfer generally required an ATF Form 4, while private making required a Form 1. The applications required identifying information, fingerprints, a photograph, details about the item, and historically a written notice to local law enforcement. ATF approval had to come first prior to the physical transfer and, in the past, that often took far more than a year for the ATF to respond. The NFA’s procedures also required entry in a central registry, proof of registration, and related marking and recordkeeping. Violations could bring serious criminal penalties and forfeiture.
In 2025, Congress removed the tax but left the federal requirements that the transfer forms be submitted and approved by ATF. Congress changed the transfer and making tax to $0 for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs, effective January 1, 2026. Congress kept the $200 tax for machineguns and destructive devices. It also kept the annual occupational tax on NFA importers, manufacturers, and dealers.
Congress did not remove the application, approval, disclosure, registration, and enforcement provisions tied to those items that were no longer subject to a tax. That mismatch created the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argued that this machinery could not stand when the tax collected no revenue from these items.
The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Texas. The lead plaintiffs included individuals, firearms businesses, membership organizations, and 15 states: Texas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. As in other cases brought by states challenging federal gun laws for their citizens, Tennessee was not among the states that were fighting the federal government’s claimed authority over their citizens. A related case, Jensen v. ATF, was consolidated with the lead case.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs raised two main claims. First, they argued that the NFA rules exceeded Congress’s limited powers under Article I of the Constitution. Second, they claimed that the same rules violated the Second Amendment. The lead plaintiffs requested a nationwide injunction against enforcement for all untaxed NFA items, including transactions involving people who were not parties. They also sought declaratory relief. The Jensen plaintiffs requested a narrower, party-specific injunction.
On August 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruled that the challenged provisions are unconstitutional as applied to the untaxed categories of firearms. His reasoning centered on Congress’s enumerated powers, not the Second Amendment (the parties had agreed that the Court need not reach the Second Amendment issues if the court ruled in favor of the Plaintiffs on the first ground).
The court found that Congress enacted the NFA under the taxing power and designed its forms, registry, approval process, and penalties to support tax collection. A tax must produce at least some revenue. Because the rate is now $0 for the items at issue, the court concluded that those controls no longer aid the collection of a tax. The remaining occupational tax on businesses was not enough, in the court’s view, to support regulatory burdens placed on individual transfers and making.
The federal government also relied on Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce and the Necessary and Proper Clause. The court rejected those defenses. It held that the NFA’s text, structure, and history showed that Congress relied on the taxing power alone and that the government could not save the law with a different, after-the-fact constitutional theory. Because this ruling gave the plaintiffs the requested protection, the court did not decide the Second Amendment claim. That claim was dismissed without prejudice as abandoned.
The relief granted by the court is important, but it is not nationwide. The court barred ATF and the Justice Department from enforcing the listed provisions against the plaintiffs and, where applicable, their agencies, political subdivisions, members, and current or future customers. Customer protection is tied to transactions with a protected commercial plaintiff or member. It does not give a customer’s entire collection a blanket exemption. The court also excluded undefined “supporters” and resident family members.
The judge refused to issue a universal injunction or a separate declaratory judgment. The court relied on the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, which limited federal courts to relief needed for the parties before them. The order also does not disturb the tax or related controls on machineguns and destructive devices, and it does not erase other federal firearm laws.
What does the decision means for Tennessee?
For Tennesseans, caution is essential. This is a Texas federal district court decision, not a ruling of the Supreme Court or the Sixth Circuit, where Tennessee is located. It does not bind Tennessee federal courts as precedent.
Of more significance, Tennessee is not a plaintiff state, and the injunction is not universal. Tennessee, its agencies, and its political subdivisions did not receive the protection granted to the 15 plaintiff states. Further, Tennesseans did not receive the protections that citizens of other states received.
Some Tennesseans may still fall within the injunction if they are members of a protected plaintiff organization or are current or future customers in a protected transaction. That coverage depends on the exact relationship and the final judgment. It should not be assumed.
The timing also matters. The court stayed its own order for seven days from August 5 so the federal government could seek appellate relief. As of August 6, no one should act as though the injunction is already in force. An appeal and a longer stay could delay or prevent it from taking effect.
What is important to understand is that Tennessee, its Legislature, its Governor and its Attorney General failed to stand up for its people.
Tennessee failed its citizens by not joining this important constitutional challenge. Other states used their offices and resources to contest a federal system that demanded personal disclosures, government approval, and registration after Congress eliminated the underlying tax. Tennessee chose not to stand with them. Of course, given that Tennessee’s state government and state officials have appealed the ruling in Hughes v. Lee and that they have refused for decades to repeal clear violations by state law of the Second Amendment, it is not surprising that these state officials made the decision not to protect the constitutionally protected rights of Tennesseans – again.
That failure has a practical cost. Tennessee’s agencies and political subdivisions are outside the state-specific injunction. Tennesseans and Tennessee businesses must sort through narrower membership and customer rules to determine whether they are protected against federal enforcement. The court protected the plaintiff states and their governmental bodies, not all residents of those states. Tennessee would have needed to establish standing and seek relief broad enough to protect its citizens. But it did neither. On an issue involving constitutional limits and serious criminal penalties, Tennesseans deserved active representation from their State, not silence from the sidelines – or worse, tacit support for the federal government’s continued registration requirements.
It is election day in Tennessee. A step will be made toward selecting a new governor. It is critical for Tennesseans to make sure that the choices that they make in this primary are for candidates who have publicly proven, through their actions, their debates, their public questioning and their survey responses that they take the Second Amendment as a “no compromise” right to be fully and completely protected. Our existing government officials – those who could have included Tennessee in this litigation failed us. In this election season, make sure you support only those candidates who leave no question as to where they stand in the defense of your constitutionally protected rights.
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