Republicans' tax bill would water down a century-old gun law [View all]

[douglas9]

Tucked into the more than 1,000 pages of the GOP domestic policy bill winding its way through Congress is a provision that would water down a nearly century-old firearms law — changes that the gun industry has sought for years but that gun-control advocates warn would come at the expense of public safety.

The legislation would ease restrictions established by the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) on suppressors — often called silencers — and certain long guns such as short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns. The change would eliminate the $200 federal tax on suppressors and the requirement that owners register them with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Republicans, including Rep. Andrew Clyde (Georgia), who took credit for the provision, said it would relieve citizens of burdensome taxes on their Second Amendment rights. But partially repealing the NFA would dismantle one of the few — and one of the most effective — federal gun laws ever enacted, according to Robert Spitzer, chair emeritus of the political science department at the State University of New York at Cortland and the author of “The Gun Dilemma: How History is Against Expanded Gun Rights.”

“This bill illustrates the muscle of the gun rights people in Congress to pull out provisions that have been in place for 90 years while sort of turning a blind eye to the history of why these things were restricted in the first place,” Spitzer said. He noted that the 1934 law regulated the weapons of choice for Prohibition-era gangsters and criminals. “It was a problem that was essentially solved — or at least addressed effectively.”

Clyde, a vocal opponent of gun control, called the taxes in the NFA “draconian” during a May 21 House debate on the tax and spending bill.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/06/27/budget-bill-silencers-short-barreled-guns/