Well, the most ridiculous portions of the National Firearms Act are officially dead (kind of).
The Department of Justice’s decision to not appeal the stay in the recent ruling that brought the federal registration of suppressors under question means that, if your state doesn’t have further laws on the books preventing the purchase of NFA items without federal registration, you should have the ability you should have the ability to take a suppressor home after completing a 4473.
There are A LOT of caveats to that idea, though. You either have to purchase the suppressor through a specific dealer or be a member of specific organizations named as a plaintiff in the case. I won’t go into too much detail as this really shouldn’t be taken as legal advice, and the firearms community generally agrees that we’re in a bit of a grey area at the moment. Whether or not the ruling applies to short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns is also being questioned.
The ATF hasn’t issued any guidance on the matter yet either, so I wish you luck in finding a dealer who is actually willing to take the chance on transferring you an NFA item without registration as it is.
I myself have taken a shot at it. I’ve ordered my suppressor and am awaiting its arrival at my local dealer. I’m about 50/50 as to whether or not I’ll actually be able to take possession of it without having to register it. The Department of Justice has until September 4 to appeal the decision (not the stay) or the ruling becomes permanent. The political landscape tells me that it would be a rather silly decision to do so just before an extremely important election, but who knows if the lawyers dealing with these sorts of things even care about that.
If, sadly, the suits decide that it’s more fun to be no fun, then I can accept federal registration begrudgingly. Firearms dealers are required to keep their 4473s for 20 years as it is, so let’s not pretend like a de facto registration doesn’t already exist for the motivated investigator.
Still, I have a lot of hope. Republicans and the Trump administration have gotten us a lot further down the field than anyone else on this issue. Eliminating the $200 tax stamp was huge. Now, the prospect of getting rid of arbitrary registration for a hearing protection device and barrel lengths for firearms is on the table. It’s an incredible win for a group who has been seriously lacking in that department for about 20 years.
In gun control-happy Europe, suppressors are seen as a common health and safety device for your firearm. Here, they’re supposedly dangerous and evil to the point of your name being forced onto a list with a litany of rules. Rifle barrels are required to be 16 inches long. Why? Because they had to lower it from 18 inches after the federal government realized that they made countless citizens felons by selling them illegal surplus rifles.
Loopholes like the “pistol brace” came about to try to fix some of the nonsense, but the ATF has flip-flopped on that issue more times than anyone wishes to count. Hopefully, we are seeing the sunset on the idiotic roadblocks meant to prevent you from practicing your Second Amendment rights, at least on the federal level.
By choosing to not appeal the decision, President Donald Trump and his administration will go down as the biggest supporters of gun rights in the modern era.
