A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas issued a permanent injunction barring enforcement of nearly 90-year-old National Firearms Act restrictions on suppressors and short-barreled firearms, ruling Congress forfeited its own constitutional authority when it eliminated the tax that justified the law.

U.S. District Judge James Hendrix handed down the ruling on Wednesday, concluding that the NFA's registration and approval requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns can no longer stand after Congress reduced the law's $200 transfer and manufacturing tax to zero. President Trump signed the legislation that zeroed out the tax, but lawmakers left the registration requirements on the books, a contradiction Judge Hendrix found fatal to the government's case.

The decision strikes at the legal foundation of one of the oldest federal gun laws in American history. The National Firearms Act, enacted in 1934 during the Prohibition era to combat organized crime, imposed taxes and registration requirements on weapons Congress deemed especially dangerous, machine guns, suppressors, and certain short-barreled firearms. For decades, courts upheld the law as a valid exercise of Congress's taxing power. Judge Hendrix ruled that justification collapsed the moment the tax disappeared, as the Washington Examiner reported.

Hendrix: Congress pulled the constitutional rug out from under its own law

Judge Hendrix put the matter bluntly in his ruling:

"No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified, as they have been for nearly 90 years, under Congress's taxing power."

The logic is straightforward. Congress justified regulating suppressors and short-barreled firearms through its power to tax. When lawmakers zeroed out the $200 tax, while leaving the federal registration and approval process intact, they severed the legal thread that held the regulatory scheme together. A registration requirement without a tax is not a tax measure. And if it is not a tax measure, Congress needs a different constitutional basis to enforce it.

Judge Hendrix, appointed to the bench by President Trump, found no such alternative basis. The permanent injunction bars enforcement of the NFA provisions covering suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns. Standard federal background checks through licensed firearms dealers still apply to purchases of those items, the ruling does not create an unregulated marketplace. What it removes is the separate NFA registration process, which required buyers to submit paperwork, pay the now-eliminated tax, and wait for federal approval before taking possession.

Gun control advocates warned the decision strips away a layer of oversight they consider essential. The Giffords Law Center called the ruling "a setback for public safety" and argued it removes long-standing safeguards for firearms subject to heightened federal oversight. Opponents of the ruling have also pointed out that the NFA registration process triggers local law enforcement notification, a step that disappears if the registration requirement itself is unenforceable.

Gun rights groups see a road map to the Supreme Court

Gun rights organizations celebrated the decision as a major victory. Several groups said the ruling could provide a road map for challenging similar federal restrictions nationwide, and could eventually reach the Supreme Court. That prospect would put the NFA's remaining provisions, including those governing machine guns, under the same constitutional microscope.

The ruling arrives at a moment when federal courts are actively reshaping the boundaries of firearms regulation. The Supreme Court struck down Hawaii's concealed carry restriction in a 6-3 decision that reinforced the individual right to bear arms outside the home, and lower courts have been grappling with how far that reasoning extends.

Meanwhile, the legislative side of the gun debate remains deeply partisan. The House passed a bill to ban tracking of gun purchases with near-universal Democratic opposition, underscoring how wide the gap remains between the two parties on firearms policy.

Congress created the contradiction, and a judge enforced it

The deeper story here is not about a rogue judge inventing new rights. It is about Congress making a choice and a court holding lawmakers to the consequences. When Congress zeroed out the NFA tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms, through legislation President Trump signed, it removed the constitutional pillar that had supported the registration scheme since 1934. Legislators apparently wanted to keep the regulatory apparatus without the revenue justification. Judge Hendrix said no.

That reasoning carries implications well beyond Texas. If other federal courts follow Hendrix's logic, the NFA's registration requirements for the affected items become unenforceable nationwide, not because the Second Amendment demands it, but because Congress itself dismantled the taxing-power rationale. The question of whether the government will appeal, and to which circuit, remains unanswered. So does the scope of the injunction: it is unclear from available reporting whether the order applies only to the parties in the case or reaches more broadly.

Courts across the country continue to draw and redraw the lines of permissible firearms regulation. A split Seventh Circuit panel upheld Illinois's assault weapons ban even as the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in on similar questions, showing how uneven the judicial landscape remains.

For gun owners, the practical effect of Wednesday's ruling is significant. Purchasers in the affected jurisdiction may now acquire suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns without completing the NFA's federal registration process, a process that often took months and required fingerprinting, photographs, and approval from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Standard background checks through licensed dealers remain in place, but the additional NFA layer is gone.

Gun control groups will frame this as a dangerous rollback. But the Giffords Law Center's complaint about lost "safeguards" sidesteps the central issue: Congress chose to eliminate the tax. If the registration requirement cannot survive without the tax, that is a problem Congress created, not one a federal judge invented. Judicial decisions continue to reshape policy in ways that unsettle both sides of the political spectrum, as recent Supreme Court rulings on redistricting have demonstrated in an entirely different arena.

When lawmakers strip the legal foundation out from under their own statute and then complain when a court notices, the problem is not the court. It is the lawmakers.