ATF barred from enforcing registration in tax repeal case

A federal judge in Texas has invalidated the government’s registration and transfer requirements for short‑barreled rifles, suppressors and related equipment covered by the National Firearms Act after Congress eliminated the $200 tax historically attached to those items.

In his Aug.5 ruling, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas granted summary judgment to gun‑rights groups and individual plaintiffs in Jensen v. ATF, holding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives cannot continue enforcing registration mandates for NFA‑regulated items that no longer carry a tax because the scheme lacks a constitutional basis under Congress’s taxing power.

Hendrix ruled Congress cannot rely on its taxing power to support a regulatory regime that no longer generates revenue.

The lawsuit was filed last year in the Northern District of Texas by the Texas State Rifle Association, the FPC Action Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Hot Shot...