Not Over Yet: NFA Tax Fight

The Senate has released new text confirming what many suspected: the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) will include a partial repeal of the National Firearms Act tax.

Under the language in Section 70436, the $200 transfer and making taxes will be reduced to $0 for all NFA items except machine guns and destructive devices.

Plain English:

• If you want to buy or build a suppressor, short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or AOW, you will no longer owe the $200 tax.
• If you want to buy or build a machine gun or destructive device, the $200 tax remains in place.

This approach is clearly designed to avoid the predictable media hysteria over “legalizing machine guns,” while still stripping the NFA of its supposed “tax” justification for regulating common firearms and accessories.

Why This Matters:
Since 1937, the government has defended the NFA as a revenue measure under Sonzinsky v. United States. With no tax left to collect on most items, the law increasingly looks like pure regulation—a much harder position to defend in court under Bruen.

If this provision passes and is signed into law, expect new lawsuits to be filed immediately challenging the entire regulatory regime for SBRs, suppressors, and SBSs.

What’s Next:
The bill still faces:

• A procedural fight over whether this language complies with the Byrd Rule
• Potential amendments in the Senate
• A final vote before July 4, as President Trump has demanded

The Long Game

This plays into the long game we have been advocating. If the $200 tax is removed then the justification for the NFA is on shaky ground, making overturning it possible in the near future. With several pending court cases making their way through the system, this starts to look like a 4D chess move and instead of the reconciliation dance, where Democrats could play their hand to increase the tax and add in AR-15s, Magazines and anything else they fancy when they take control again in the future, dismantling the NFA altogether takes that piece off the board.

We’ll keep tracking every development.

Stay tuned.