‘Relief, If Any’: The DOJ’s Week to Save NFA Registration Ended Without a Single Filing
The stay on the NFA registration ruling expired with no appeal filed, and the first registration-free suppressor transfers since 1934 followed at midnight. Here’s who’s covered and what still applies.
The NFA registration injunction is in effect. The seven-day stay Judge James Wesley Hendrix attached to his August 5 final judgment in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF (N.D. Tex. No. 6:25-cv-00056) ran out Wednesday, and the Justice Department filed nothing to stop it.
The National Firearms Act has run on paperwork since 1934: applications, fingerprints, tax stamps, a registry. The scheme that lives on filings just lost the one week where a single filing could have saved it.
It wasn’t always a filing cabinet. The ad up top ran in the 1915 World Almanac, back when the Maxim Silencer Co. of Hartford sold cans through hardware and sporting-goods dealers on the promise you could “shoot without scaring the game.” Congress turned that counter purchase into a federal file in 1934.
Quick refresher: Hendrix ruled that once Congress zeroed the NFA’s transfer and making taxes for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons,” the registration machinery built to collect those taxes lost its constitutional footing. His 66-page opinion landed August 5; our full breakdown of the ruling ran the next morning.
The scoreboard: The final judgment paused itself for one week “to allow the defendants to seek relief, if any, at the appellate level.” Through the deadline: no notice of appeal, no emergency motion to the Fifth Circuit, no request for more time.
For a week, gun owners refreshed one federal docket like it was a sneaker drop. The only entries that landed were housekeeping filings from the winning side’s lawyers.
On Wednesday, Rep. Andrew Clyde said the quiet part out loud. “I’ve received confirmation from the Trump Administration that the DOJ will NOT appeal our historic court victory against the NFA,” the Georgia congressman posted.
Two days earlier, Clyde and nearly 50 House and Senate colleagues had sent Attorney General Todd Blanche a letter urging the department to skip the appeal and apply the ruling nationwide through rulemaking. The department itself has said nothing on the docket, which is the only place it counts.
The injunction did not wait on ceremony. At 12:01 a.m. Central on Thursday, Gun Owners of America members Brandon Herrera and Wes Virdell took delivery of suppressors at Silencer Shop’s storefront in Leander, Texas, with no Form 4 and no registration, after the buyers notified ATF and DOJ of their intent and the agencies didn’t object.
GOA calls them the first lawful unregistered suppressor transfers since the NFA passed in 1934. “We promised to keep fighting until these restrictions were gone, and now our members are putting the historic victory into action,” GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said in a statement. “The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end.”
Who’s covered: The NFA registration injunction is not nationwide, and the court said so. Under the Supreme Court’s Trump v. CASA limits on universal injunctions, relief runs to the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers, current and future.
That roster is wide. SilencerCo, B&T USA (whose Utah factory expansion we covered), and Palmetto State Armory (whose Sabre .300 Blackout we’ve reviewed) are covered as businesses, alongside Silencer Shop Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, FRAC, 15 states, and the consolidated Jensen plaintiffs, including the Texas State Rifle Association, CCRKBA, and FPC Action Foundation.
Coverage follows the roster, not the zip code. One caveat inside the caveat: for the Jensen plaintiffs, the injunction doesn’t reach “any other weapons” at all.
SilencerCo Omega 9K 9mm Suppressor
SilencerCo is a named plaintiff in the case that just took effect, and the Omega 9K is its do-it-all 9mm can that also runs 300 Blackout subsonics. Per the judgment, its customers, current and future, sit inside the injunction's coverage.
The fine print: A statement to a congressman is not a court filing. Rule 4 gives the government 60 days from judgment to notice an appeal, so the file technically stays open into early October.
State law didn’t move either. If your state bans suppressors or SBRs, Wednesday changed nothing at your counter, and the rest of federal dealer law (the 4473, the background check) still applies to suppressor sales everywhere.
Your move: If you belong to one of the plaintiff organizations or buy from a covered company, your paperwork picture changed this week; how fast that shows up at the counter depends on your dealer. If you don’t, the fight that reaches you is the nationwide-rulemaking push Clyde’s letter teed up.
Watch three things from here: whether DOJ’s October window closes as quietly as its August one did, whether ATF issues guidance for dealers, and whether the rulemaking ask gets traction. A 92-year-old paperwork regime is now down to somebody else’s paperwork to survive.
Are you covered by one of the plaintiff organizations, and has your dealer changed its process yet? Tell us in the comments.
Shopping your first can while the rules are moving? Our Best 9mm Suppressors guide runs the field, and the Omega 9K above holds its full-auto slot.
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Sources: the court’s memorandum opinion and final judgment in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF (N.D. Tex. No. 6:25-cv-00056, consolidated with Jensen v. ATF, No. 6:26-cv-00227); Rep. Clyde’s release and August 11 letter to the Attorney General; Gun Owners of America’s release on the Leander transfers; Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4. Featured image: 1915 Maxim Gun Silencer advertisement, The World Almanac, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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.