Missouri Just Sued ATF to Kill the NFA Registry After the Tax Hit Zero

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, joined by plaintiff Dave Marshak, sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The Attorney General’s office posted the announcement and the complaint. Hanaway: “Law and order and the Second Amendment go hand in hand. A government that respects the Constitution has empowered, law-abiding citizens who can protect themselves and their families. It does not paper over rights with red tape.” Then: “The ATF’s heavy-handed restrictions on suppressors threaten lawful firearm use and undermine the rights protected by the Second Amendment.”

The complaint, as described by the AGO, argues the remaining restrictions are unconstitutional as applied to suppressors and short-barreled rifles because they are protected arms. There is no historical tradition of requiring Americans to register protected arms, the office says, and those items are commonly used for safer training, hunting, and self-defense.

The tax argument is the structural punch. When Congress zeroed the National Firearms Act making taxes and transfer taxes for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns, Missouri says the law’s constitutional basis as a tax measure dissolved. The federal government still enforces registration and data-collection requirements, backed by criminal penalties.

Missouri asks the Eastern District to declare that the remaining NFA regulations for those untaxed items exceed Congress’s powers and violate the Second Amendment as applied to suppressors and short-barreled rifles, and to block ATF and DOJ from enforcing them. This is a filing, not an injunction. The court has not ruled.