U.S. Sen. Steve Daines joined Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., in leading a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice urging the agency to adopt Congress’s intent behind a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that eliminated the $200 National Firearms Act excise tax on certain firearms and accessories.
In the letter, the lawmakers called on the Justice Department to end its support for what they described as the unconstitutional NFA registration and transfer regime that remains in place for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and “any other weapons,” despite the elimination of the associated taxes.
“We write to inform the Department of Justice of Congress’s position and intent regarding ongoing litigation challenging the National Firearms Act’s registration and transfer requirements for non-taxed NFA firearms, following the enactment of President Trump’s landmark Second Amendment victory in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the lawmakers wrote.
According to the letter, Congress intended the taxation and registration provisions of the NFA to be inseparably linked. By removing the taxes through the OBBBA, the lawmakers argue, Congress effectively expressed its intent to repeal the corresponding registration and transfer requirements.
The lawmakers said they were “seriously concerned and disappointed” by the Justice Department’s recent court filing opposing that interpretation. They contend the department’s position conflicts with congressional intent and undermines the constitutional framework on which the NFA has rested since its enactment in 1934.
“Therefore, we again urge the Department of Justice to adopt and advance Congress’s stated position in all litigation concerning these provisions, to ensure that congressional intent is accurately represented and upheld before the courts,” the letter states.
Daines and Clyde also pointed to precedent from President Donald Trump’s first term, noting that when Congress reduced the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty to zero, the Justice Department declined to defend the law’s underlying provisions in court.
“The Department is fully empowered to decline to defend statutory provisions that no longer rest on a valid constitutional basis,” the lawmakers wrote. “It has exercised that authority before, and it must do so again here — this time in defense of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”
The letter comes amid ongoing legal challenges to the NFA’s registration requirements following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a measure Republicans have touted as a significant expansion of gun rights protections.