Michigan’s Five-Year Suppressor Felony Guards a Door the Feds Abandoned, and Two Lansing Bills Want It Gone
Two bills filed August 27 would repeal Michigan’s felony bans on suppressors and short-barreled rifles, closing the legal gap the federal NFA injunction opened for owners who skip now-unenforceable paperwork.
A Michigan suppressor law repeal is now on paper in Lansing, and the push comes straight from the federal court order that knocked the NFA’s registration machinery out from under every state law leaning on it.
On August 27, two House Republicans filed a paired package: HB 6285 would erase the state’s criminal prohibitions on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns, while HB 6284 sweeps the matching felonies out of Michigan’s sentencing guidelines. Both went to the House Judiciary Committee the same day.
The setup Michigan owners have lived with for years goes like this. State law bans all three items outright, then lets you back in through exemptions keyed to federal paperwork: MCL 750.224b spares any short-barreled gun “lawfully made, manufactured, transferred, or possessed under federal law,” and the suppressor ban has its own carve-out tied to federal licensing.
In practice, that made the statute a bouncer checking for a federal wristband. Form 4, tax stamp, approval in hand: walk right in.
Then the feds stopped checking wristbands at their own door. On August 5, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix entered final judgment in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, permanently barring enforcement of the NFA’s registration, making, and transfer requirements for suppressors and short-barreled firearms after Congress cut their tax stamps to $0.
The government had seven days to seek a stay and filed nothing, a silence CAT covered in real time. As of this writing, no notice of appeal has hit the docket either.
The chopping block: HB 6285, from Rep. James DeSana, R-Carleton, strips the short-barreled rifle and shotgun definitions out of MCL 750.222, deletes mufflers and silencers from the prohibited-weapons list in MCL 750.224, and repeals MCL 750.224b entirely. HB 6284, from Rep. Mike Hoadley, R-Au Gres, updates the sentencing guidelines to match.
Hoadley’s bill is tie-barred to DeSana’s, so it only takes effect if the repeal itself becomes law. The cleanup crew doesn’t show up unless the demolition does.
The stakes today: each of those violations is a felony carrying up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $2,500, or both. State charges, state prison, and the federal injunction touches none of it.
“Michigan residents should not suddenly find themselves facing felony charges because the federal registration process our state laws have relied upon may be changing,” DeSana said in the House Republicans’ announcement.
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Who actually feels it: every Michigan owner whose legal standing runs through that federal paperwork, and every dealer moving cans or short-barreled guns to Michigan buyers. The injunction stops federal enforcement, but the NFA itself is still on the books, so whether gear bought without the now-unenforceable paperwork still fits Michigan’s federal-law exemptions is a question no court has answered.
Nobody should want to be the test case at five years a pop. Not when the stamp is free and fast: NSSF pegs the median individual eForm 4 approval at six days, with ATF fielding more than 1.62 million NFA forms in the first half of 2026.
The bigger signal: the Michigan suppressor law repeal looks like the first state legislation moved in direct answer to the injunction, and Michigan won’t stay alone. Every state whose suppressor or SBR statutes piggyback on NFA compliance woke up August 13 with the same gap.
States get two options: update the code, or leave their gun owners parked between a federal court that says the paperwork can’t be enforced and a state statute that still says five years.
What happens next: both bills sit in Judiciary with no hearing scheduled, and the House returns from summer break September 1. Committee is where bills like this often stall, so the thing to watch is whether the package gets a hearing date.
Your move: if you’re in Michigan, nothing about the smart play changed. The federal paperwork is still what parks you safely inside the state exemptions, so keep filing, free stamp or not. And until Lansing acts, Michigan’s bouncer is still at the door; he doesn’t care that the federal one went home.
What do you think of Michigan’s move to scrap its suppressor and SBR felonies? Let us know in the comments.
Shopping your first can while approvals run days instead of months? Start with our best 9mm suppressors guide.
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Sources: Michigan Legislature, HB 6285 of 2026; Michigan Legislature, HB 6284 of 2026; MCL 750.224b; Michigan House Republicans, August 27 announcement; Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF docket, N.D. Tex. 6:25-cv-00056 (CourtListener); NSSF, ATF NFA wait-time and volume data. Featured photo: Michigan State Capitol by Mojnsen, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Justin Trump is the managing editor and owner of CAT Outdoors. The son of a Vietnam veteran, he’s a Certified Glock Armorer, an avid gun enthusiast and 2A advocate. He holds two firearm patents for the CAT M4 and Talon tools. When not managing CAT Outdoors, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, rooting for Michigan sports teams, and serving his church.