CHARLESTON, WV — Today, Attorney General JB McCuskey announced a major win for gun owners in West Virginia. A federal judge has ruled in favor of West Virginia and 14 other states in a lawsuit challenging the National Firearms Act (NFA). The decision deems the NFA’s burdensome registration regulations of short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers and other firearms no longer valid.
The NFA’s required registration of the firearms were only valid as a means of collecting taxes. However, in the One Big Beautiful Bill, the taxes were eliminated. West Virginia joined others in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF to argue that without the taxes, the NFA regulations could no longer be enforced. Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed with West Virginia, ruling that without the taxing power, the federal government lost its authority to force gun owners to register their short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers and other firearms. That registration included fingerprinting, submitting photographs, and ATF approval, among other requirements.
“The federal government has long used its taxing power as a backdoor to impose invasive registration mandates on law-abiding citizens. We recognized that once the tax was eliminated, the regulations needed to go too. I am thankful that the court agreed with our arguments as we fought on behalf of gun-owners and the principles of the Second Amendment,” Attorney General McCuskey said.
West Virginia joined the lawsuit alongside Texas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, along with a coalition of individuals, gun-rights organizations, and firearms businesses.
Read the ruling here.