UPDATE: Last year, Congress reduced the $200 tax on silencers, short-barreled rifles, shotguns to $0 in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Still, it kept the related federal paperwork, photograph, and fingerprinting requirements for those items.
West Virginia joined other states and gun-rights organizations to challenge those continuing registration requirements. And last week, a federal court issued a permanent injunction that prevents the government from enforcing the registration requirements against the parties to this case. The federal government did not seek to stay the decision, but it remains subject to appeal.
The ruling has caused some confusion. It clearly applies to West Virginia’s state agencies, along with the members and customers of the specific organizations and companies involved in the case. It is less clear whether it applies to individual West Virginians beyond those. We are working with other Republican Attorneys General to confirm the scope of the injunction and ensure that it applies to every law-abiding citizen in West Virginia.
For now, our advice is to continue to follow the direction of the ATF. We will provide updates as the case develops. And in the meantime, we will continue to fight for your Second Amendment rights in this case and others.
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burdensome registration regulations of short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers and other firearms no longer valid.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.