Quote of the Day
There is no longer any reason for this government gun registry scheme to continue, and our victory will ideally lead to other successful court rulings across the country. American citizens should never have their names on a government registry in order to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
August 5, 2026
Fed. Judge Rules ATF Registration Requirements on SBRs, Suppressors Unconstitutional – TheGunMag
Agreed, just like our First Amendment rights, no one should ever have to register themselves, their books, their church, magazine subscription, ammo purchases, or their guns. What is a little misleading here is that this case was not won on Second Amendment grounds. And because of that (I am not a lawyer, so someone correct me if I’m wrong) this case cannot be leveraged to state and local registries.
And just on the core decision it is not a certainty that it will hold on appeal.
Copilot is of the option that even in the Fifth Circuit, the appeals court is likely to overrule the decision. Furthermore, it thinks the odds are low of SCOTUS buying the argument that no tax means no registration.
Grok is of the opinion the appeals court and SCOTUS will uphold the ruling.
Claude thinks it is a coin flip on appeal.
I just wonder what the odds are of Democrats, if they get control of all the house, senate and presidency, caring enough to reinstate the tax and registration in, say, 2029 -> 2032. If they had the votes to reinstate it, they probably would have the votes to include “assault weapons.” Hence, the silencers, SBR, and SBS are enough of a hook to get them to act and then they up-scale to include semi-automatic rifles. Sure, next June SCOTUS will say the guns cannot be banned. But they could place a tax of $20,000 per SBR, SBS, and “assault weapon” and require registration of all of them.
Celebrate our win but prepare appropriately as needed for the uncertain future.
The case was won on the argument that the processes to implement a tax are unConstitutional when the tax is no longer collected.
The bigger win is that the government lost on the grounds of “well, we need those processes to regulate interstate commerce”. Nope, said the court, you can’t ex post facto a Constitutional justification that Congress did not create.
The biggest win is the government lost on the argument that “we need these processes for public safety!” Nope, once the Constitutionality was lost, you can’t argue from utility to retain it. You can’t any more than “Hey, I know we made involuntary servitude un-Constitutional, except as a penalty for crimes convicted, but hear me out… what if we’re doing it to stop gun crime?”
There are all sorts of infringements that have none of the claimed utility of “public safety”, but are more for government control. Take the WA universal background check law… thanks to Haynes vs US (1968), you can’t prosecute prohibited persons for not doing a background check for a firearm transfer due to the 5th Amendment! So the only persons that could be prosecuted are people that could pass the background check, but they just didn’t do the paperwork. Where’s the “public safety” utility?
So, I think the big win is that an vigorous but insincere assertion of “public safety” isn’t just automatically swallowed by the courts, and this precedent is citable.
Well, it might be upheld on 2nd Amendment grounds even if the tax reasoning isn’t. The trial court observed it did not need to consider the 2nd Amendment issue because it already got to what the plaintiffs wanted without it.
Thus, there is no impediment to a case where the crux of the plaintiff’s argument is that the Second Amendment, when considered in context with the preamble of the Bill of Rights, amends and constrains all enumerated powers o the Constitution, and through the 14th Amendment, similarly applies to state and local taxing powers.
So then we’re in a territory where we have to consider if the tax is an infringement on the right.
Pittman-Robertson tax might survive, because the tax is dedicated to conservation of hunting lands and the development of gun ranges, which contributes to the regular function of the militia. (Thus ensuring that the militia, i.e. the whole of the People, is well-regulated. That was written down as as being important, somewhere.)
General taxation, such that applies uniformly to all commercial activity may survive, although it would be just as valid to exempt such things from general taxation.
Targeted taxation into the general fund of ammunition, firearms or appurtenances thereof would unlikely survive, because they apply to All The People, and they specifically burden the exercise of an enumerated right.
This case neatly evaded even having to consider the 2A implications, but noted that such a consideration was possible. That note might be sufficient that if a higher court overrode the Taxation Power arguments and returned the case to the lower court, that lower court could immediately go into the 2A implications and could solicit briefs from the parties on those merits without having to start over.
“[W]e have to consider if the tax is an infringement on the right.”
What was the famous (perhaps I’m being to optimistic with that word) case holding a tax on printer’s ink was an infringement on the First Amendment Freedom of the Press?
I believe it was Chief Justice Holmes who said that the power to tax is the power to destroy.
The Overton Window has not moved, but I believe there is pressure against it in its present position.
Using AI to predict what judges will do is a losing game. They are basically petty tyrants who do whatever they feel like on any given day, the law, constitution, and procedure be damned. I suppose AI could predict based on ideology but this doesn’t work for the Supremes where there isn’t a stable ideological majority.
I always think cases are a coin toss, especially at SCOTUS. It largely depends on which on John Roberts is on the bench that day. Kavanaugh and Barrett are generally good on Second Amendment cases but one never knows…
Yes. Do we have to put up with decisions based on the state of Roberts’s digestion that morning?
It would be worse if we had evidence that he licked his finger and stuck it in the political air before rendering a decision.