Texas Judge Shreds 90-Year Gun Rule

Judge's gavel and handgun on wooden table — 90-YEAR GUN RULE GUTTED

A single Texas judge just snapped a 90-year federal gun rule in half, and the shock waves will not stay inside one courtroom.

Story Snapshot

A Texas federal judge ruled core National Firearms Act rules on suppressors and short barrels cannot be enforced.
The judge said Congress lost its taxing-power basis after it dropped the federal tax on those items to zero.
The ruling shields the lawsuit’s plaintiffs in fifteen states and invites a Supreme Court showdown over gun rules.
The case puts old mafia-era gun controls against modern Second Amendment thinking.

How a nearly century-old gun law just broke in a Texas courtroom

United States District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas ruled that the federal government can no longer enforce key National Firearms Act rules on firearm suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain specialty firearms against the plaintiffs before him. He focused on one blunt point.

For almost ninety years, Congress justified these strict rules as part of a tax system. Then Congress removed the tax. Hendrix said you cannot pretend the tax power still supports the same heavy controls.

Texas judge rules that law regulating firearm suppressors and some guns can’t be enforced https://t.co/5Rije7aNh8

— O.C. Register (@ocregister) August 5, 2026

The National Firearms Act began in the 1930s, during the gangster era, as a mix of registration and a hefty two-hundred-dollar tax on items lawmakers saw as especially dangerous. That tax was supposed to be the hook that made the scheme fit within Congress’s power to raise revenue.

In 2025, Congress passed what gun-rights advocates call the One Big Beautiful Bill, cutting the tax on these items to zero while leaving the registration and approval rules in place. Hendrix’s ruling says the government cannot keep the chains it no longer pays for.

What exactly Judge Hendrix struck down and for whom

Hendrix’s decision did not erase the National Firearms Act from the books. It targeted specific parts: the requirements to register these items, get government approval before making or transferring them, and treat violations as federal crimes, at least when the only claimed constitutional hook is the now-vanished tax.

The ruling applies to the named plaintiffs, which include Kansas and fourteen other states along with gun-rights groups and individuals. That seems narrow, but in modern constitutional litigation, a narrow doorway can quickly become a wide-open gate.

Gun owners will want to slow down before they assume these rules are gone for everyone. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives still enforces National Firearms Act rules outside the scope of this case, and the Department of Justice is expected to appeal.

An appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit would test whether higher judges agree that a tax-law foundation cannot support a tax-free scheme.

If the government loses there, the dispute will almost certainly head toward the Supreme Court. That path could turn one district court ruling into a national turning point.

Why conservatives see this as a win for limited government and gun rights

Conservative officials and advocates quickly praised Hendrix’s opinion as a needed correction to federal overreach. For decades, they argued that Washington abused tax and commerce powers to drive policy that looked more like punishment than revenue.

When Congress itself dropped the tax to zero, those critics saw a clear test. If the government kept using tax-era rules as pure control tools, then the mask was off. Hendrix agreed, at least for the plaintiffs, and said the Constitution does not allow phantom taxes to carry real chains.

This ruling says the federal government must play by the rules it wrote. If lawmakers tell voters a burden is a “tax” that justifies a registry, but then erase the tax, they cannot keep the registry and pretend nothing changed.

Many conservatives also stress that suppressors can protect hearing and improve control, especially for older shooters, and that short rifles and shotguns are common tools for home defense. They argue these items are not gangster toys but practical arms that fit the core of the Second Amendment’s promise.

Where this fight fits in the wider suppressor and short-barrel battles

This case did not appear out of thin air. Texas has been ground zero for battles over federal suppressor rules for years. The state passed House Bill 957, called the Texas Suppressor Freedom Act, to exempt Texas-made suppressors that never leave the state from federal rules.

The Texas Attorney General sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to defend that approach, arguing federal regulators were overstepping their authority. Other cases in the Fifth Circuit also pressed the courts to say exactly how far the Second Amendment covers suppressors.

Some appellate decisions cut against gun owners, holding that suppressors sit outside the heart of the right to keep and bear arms. Others suggested suppressors support self-defense by protecting hearing and improving accuracy and so deserve strong protection.

Hendrix’s ruling adds a new track to that debate. Instead of asking whether suppressors matter enough for the Second Amendment by themselves, he asked whether the federal government can keep treating them as tax targets after the tax vanished.

That framing is powerful because it forces both Congress and federal agencies to tie gun rules to real constitutional powers and honest explanations, not to outdated labels.