Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF · N.D. Texas · Final judgment operative August 13, 2026
For ninety-two years, buying a suppressor in this country meant asking the federal government for permission and waiting for an answer. On August 12, 2026 the government’s seven-day clock ran out and it never filed a thing. One minute after midnight, two men walked out of a Texas dealer with suppressors that do not exist in any federal registry.
August 13, 2026 · Central time
12:01 a.m.
Silencer Shop · Texas
Gun Owners of America posted it as it happened. Brandon Herrera and Wes Virdell each took possession of a suppressor from Silencer Shop at the first minute the injunction operated without a stay over it. No Form 4 was submitted. No ATF approval was requested. Neither suppressor was entered into the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. That is not a loophole and it is not civil disobedience — it is a federal court order being followed.
Gun Owners of America, posted August 13, 2026
“It is 12:01 am on August 13th, 2026. @TheAKGuy & @WesVirdellTX are purchasing the first unregistered suppressors from @SilencerShop.”Verbatim, as reported by The Reload
Judge James Wesley Hendrix entered final judgment on August 5, 2026 and stayed it for seven days — in his words, “to allow the defendants to seek relief, if any, at the appellate level.” That is a standard courtesy. A department that intends to fight uses that week to ask the district judge for a longer stay, and failing that, to run to the Fifth Circuit for an emergency one. Both are routine. Both are filed all the time.
The Justice Department did neither. It let all seven days elapse without asking anyone for anything. Rep. Andrew Clyde then said he had direct confirmation there would be no appeal at all.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), August 12, 2026
“I’ve received confirmation from the Trump Administration that the DOJ will NOT appeal our historic court victory against the NFA.”Verbatim, as reported by The Reload
What that means practically
It is final in Texas.
The case is closed. The clerk was directed to close it in the judgment itself. There is no pending appeal, no stay, and no appellate court holding this in suspense. For the people the order covers, this is not a preview of a future rule. It is the rule.
What it does not mean
The NFA is not repealed.
A district judge cannot erase a statute from the U.S. Code. What Hendrix did was hold the challenged provisions unconstitutional and forbid this government from enforcing them against these plaintiffs. Congress passed the NFA. Only Congress can take it off the books.
Forget the constitutional argument for a second and look at the transaction. This is the road a suppressor buyer has walked since 1934. Seven stations, and the item sits in someone else’s safe for the entire trip.
Application to transfer, filed with ATF
Two FD-258 fingerprint cards, per person
Attached to the application
Transfer tax, paid up front
Copy to your chief law enforcement officer
You wait. The can sits in the dealer’s safe.
Your name and serial go in the NFRTR, permanently
Here is the same trip for a covered buyer as of August 13, 2026. The track does not get easier. It gets shorter.
The same form as a shotgun
Background check at the counter
Same day
The part worth saying out loud
A suppressor now moves across a covered counter on exactly the same paperwork as a pump shotgun. A Form 4473 and a NICS check. That is it. The fingerprint cards, the passport photo, the chief law enforcement officer notification, the tax stamp, the approval wait, and the permanent registry entry are all simply gone from the transaction.
Judge Hendrix struck provisions of the National Firearms Act. The Gun Control Act is a different statute, it was never in this case, and it contains a sentence that does independent work here.
18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(4)
“It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver … to any person any destructive device, machinegun … short-barreled shotgun, or short-barreled rifle, except as specifically authorized by the Attorney General consistent with public safety and necessity.”Verbatim from the United States Code
Read the list. Short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns are in it. Suppressors are not. So when a dealer hands you a suppressor across the counter, no separate authorization is needed. When a dealer hands you a short-barreled rifle, the Attorney General has to have specifically authorized it — and right now an approved Form 4 is the only mechanism anyone has for getting that authorization.
Buying an SBR or SBS from a dealer
Form 4 still required.
Not because of the NFA. Because of § 922(b)(4). A licensed dealer cannot lawfully deliver one to you without that Attorney General authorization, and your coverage under this injunction does not supply it. This is true even if you are a GOA member standing in a plaintiff company’s store.
Making your own SBR or SBS
No Form 1.
This is the part that is genuinely enormous. 26 U.S.C. § 5822 — the making-approval provision — was struck, and § 922(b)(4) only restrains licensees selling, not individuals building. A covered person in a state that allows short-barreled rifles can put a short upper on a rifle lower without filing anything with ATF.
So the honest headline is not “buy an SBR with no paperwork.” It is that the federal permission slip for building one just stopped applying to a large group of Americans, while the counter sale of a factory SBR is still stuck behind a Gun Control Act provision that nobody has challenged yet.
Because of Trump v. CASA, federal courts do not hand out universal injunctions anymore. Hendrix wrote the relief to reach the plaintiffs “and, where applicable, the plaintiffs’ agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers — both current and future.” That last phrase is the whole ballgame. You are not stuck outside because you were not a party in 2025. You can become a covered person by joining or by buying.
These fifteen states sued as plaintiffs and their agencies and political subdivisions are covered. Living in one of them does not by itself make you a covered person — the court did not turn every resident into a plaintiff.
Read this twice
The protection attaches to a transaction with a covered party, not to you personally forever. It is not a permanent personal exemption covering everything you own, buy, make or transfer for the rest of your life. Your local shop that is not a plaintiff cannot hand you an unregistered can, and your coverage does not answer that dealer’s own legal exposure. Keep documentation of why you qualify.
This ruling touched federal law only. State law sits on top of it untouched, and it sorts the country into three groups. Silencer Shop has published how it is treating each state, and Virginia lands in the best one.
For everyone watching this in Virginia
Virginia is in the first group. A Virginian who qualifies as a covered person can buy a suppressor from a covered dealer, fill out a 4473, pass a background check, and carry it out the door the same afternoon. After the year Richmond has put gun owners through, read that sentence again.
Hype gets people indicted. Here is the ledger of what actually moved and what did not.
Form 4, fingerprints, photos, approval wait, registry entry.
§ 5822 approval and the Form 1, for covered people, under federal law.
Blocked separately by 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(4).
Congress never zeroed their $200 tax, so the taxing-power foundation still stands. Nothing about them changed.
26 U.S.C. § 5861(j) covers interstate transport, delivery and receipt of unregistered NFA firearms — and it was not in the injunction. Do not assume this order authorizes it.
If it is registered, it stays registered. There is no de-registration in this order.
The entire Gun Control Act is fully operative. Felons still cannot buy anything.
Not a member, not in a covered transaction, not a covered state agency? The NFA applies to you exactly as it did on August 4.
The final judgment is two pages long. This is the operative sentence, quoted exactly.
Final Judgment, Dkt. 137, entered August 5, 2026
“Accordingly, the Court permanently enjoins the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the United States Department of Justice, Todd Blanche in his official capacity, Robert Cekada in his official capacity, their divisions, bureaus, agents, officers, commissioners, employees, and anyone acting in concert or participation with them, including their successors in office, from enforcing the challenged provisions of the National Firearms Act as to untaxed firearms against the plaintiffs and, where applicable, the plaintiffs’ agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers — both current and future.”James Wesley Hendrix, United States District Judge
The provisions named in that order: 26 U.S.C. §§ 5812(a)–(b), 5822, 5841(a)–(c), (e), 5861(b)–(f), plus §§ 5842(b) and 5861(i) for the Jensen plaintiffs, and 27 C.F.R. §§ 479.62(a)–(d) and 479.84(a)–(d). Transfer approval. Making approval. The registry itself. The felony provisions that enforced all of it. Struck, for these people, permanently.
President Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, zeroing the $200 making and transfer tax on suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs. Hours later, the Silencer Shop Foundation files suit arguing that a tax of zero cannot support a tax law.
The OBBBA provision takes effect. From this date the federal government collects nothing on a suppressor transfer, but still demands the entire registration apparatus that existed to collect it.
The Northern District of Texas holds the NFA’s registration machinery for untaxed firearms beyond Congress’s enumerated powers. Final judgment entered the same day, stayed seven days “to allow the defendants to seek relief, if any, at the appellate level.”
The Justice Department does not ask Judge Hendrix for more time. It does not ask the Fifth Circuit for a stay. Rep. Andrew Clyde says he has confirmation the administration will not appeal at all. The stay lapses on schedule.
Brandon Herrera and Wes Virdell take possession of suppressors from Silencer Shop in Texas. No Form 4 is filed. No approval is sought. Nothing is entered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
The argument in one sentence
The Supreme Court upheld the NFA in 1937 in Sonzinsky because it was a tax, Congress cut that tax to zero, and a tax that collects nothing is not a tax — so the registration machinery bolted to it lost the only constitutional authority it ever had. The full breakdown of the ruling is on our NFA collapse page.
More cases
Brown v. ATF is pending in the Eastern District of Missouri and Roberts v. ATF in the Eastern District of Kentucky, both raising the same enumerated-powers theory. Hendrix pointed to them as a reason not to grant universal relief. Every one of them is another chance to widen the group of covered Americans.
Congress
Hendrix wrote that efforts to render the NFA constitutional “must come from Congress, not this Court.” That cuts both ways. Congress can also finish the job and strike these items from the NFA entirely, which is what the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act have always been about.
And the sober version
This administration chose not to appeal. A future one can take a different view of everything except the injunction itself, and can fight the next case hard. An appellate court somewhere else can rule the other way and set up a split. Enjoy the win, use it, and do not build your life around the assumption that this is permanent nationwide law. It is not, yet.