After weeks of gun-rights proponents waiting for a final answer, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced it will not appeal the federal ruling blocking enforcement of the National Firearms Act registration requirements for the purchase of suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and items designated as “any other weapons.”
We reported on September 18 that President Donald Trump had instructed the DOJ to not appeal the ruling. On September 24, Solicitor General John Saur sent a letter to Congress informing lawmakers that the government will not be appealing the decision.
As the solicitor general noted, in 2025, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, a statute that ‘amended the NFA to eliminate the transfer and making taxes on short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, silencers, and AOWs. However, Congress left in place the web of regulation originally meant to aid enforcement of the NFA’s now-extinct taxes. A group of plaintiffs sued the federal government in federal district court, claiming that those regulatory requirements, including registration, exceeded Congress’s enumerated powers.
“The district court entered summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs, holding that specified provisions of the NFA are now unconstitutional with respect to short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, silencers and AOWs,’” the letter, addressed to Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley said. “The district court first concluded that those provisions can no longer be sustained under Congress’s taxing powers. The court then concluded that those provisions also could not be sustained under Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.”
After careful consideration, including President Trump’s advice, Grassley wrote that the DOJ would decline to appeal.
“I write to advise you that the Department of Justice has determined not to file an appeal in the above referenced case,” Saur wrote to Sen. Grassley.
Of course, gun-ban organizations, including Giffords, were very angry at the DOJ’s announcement.
“CBS reported last month that President Trump himself ordered the DOJ to not appeal this case,” stated a Giffords news release on the announcement. “By refusing to appeal, the DOJ has ceded its duty to defend the 1934 federal law, which has already led to dismissed criminal indictments and left federal prosecutors pursuing firearms cases under the NFA in limbo.”
Doubling down, Giffords Executive Director Emma Brown called the DOJ’s move a “failure to defend public safety” and predicted we would go back to mafia days.
“Congress put these safeguards in place nearly 100 years ago for a reason,” Brown said. “The Trump Administration could bring us back to the days of Al Capone, when silencers and short-barreled shotguns were used in organized crime to terrorize the public. This decision creates a loophole in federal law via membership in the nation’s most extreme gun groups, fueling gun industry bottom lines, while upending public safety.”
With the government officially declining to appeal, it’s time the DOJ finally releases guidance on the sale of these now-deregulated items. If, as some say, “a right delayed is a right denied,” the federal government’s tardiness (it has been nearly two months since the injunction) in providing legal guidance for sellers and purchasers is effectively denying the right of lawful gun owners to purchase silencers, SBRs, and SBSs without undue government roadblocks.
One critical note: The injunction currently applies only to current and future Gun Owners of America, Palmetto State Armory, and SilencerCo customers. Those not covered will have to continue dealing with the current NFA rules until the DOJ provides guidelines, hopefully stating otherwise.
