Trump Told DOJ Not to Appeal the Texas NFA Registry Loss

CBS News reported that President Trump ordered the Justice Department not to appeal the August ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Wesley Hendrix in the Northern District of Texas. The consolidated cases are the Jensen / Silencer Shop challenges to remaining National Firearms Act registration for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the $200 making and transfer tax. Hendrix: “Because today’s NFA does not generate any revenue from untaxed firearms, its regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power.” Machine guns and destructive devices were not in the injunction. A Justice Department official told CBS the department intends to tell Congress it will not appeal. An ATF spokesperson said the bureau “will issue guidance soon to implement the court’s order.” The deadline to notice an appeal is October 5, 2026.

A White House spokesperson, quoted by CBS: “Anyone who would have been prohibited from buying a firearm under the old structure is still prohibited from buying a firearm under the structure that now exists after the federal district court’s decision. All federal criminal statutes imposing additional charges or penalties for the unlawful possession of a firearm remain in place and will continue to be enforced.” The injunction runs to the parties — CBS counts 15 states plus gun-rights groups and individuals, including Gun Owners of America — and to those groups’ members and customers, “both current and future.” It is not a nationwide vacatur. NICS still applies at retail. Career lawyers, CBS’s sources said, wanted the appeal and warned about prosecutions. CBS also described a Middle District of Alabama silencer count against Cameron Silmon that the government dismissed after the defense said he had joined plaintiff groups post-injunction; prosecutors then pursued a machine-gun charge, which Hendrix did not enjoin.

This is not ATF rewriting the NFA by memo. It is the executive branch declining to defend a registry the district court already said has no tax left under it. States or other intervenors can still try to pick up the appeal. Congress can still put a tax back on. Until October 5, the only new fact is that CBS’s sources, a DOJ official, and a White House spokesperson are all describing the same decision: do not appeal.