What Does and Doesn’t Change If Stay Expires in NFA Case

We’re still waiting to see if the Department of Justice will tell a federal judge in Texas that it plans on appealing his decision that many NFA regulations on suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and “any other weapons” are invalid now that the making and transfer taxes on those items has been zeroed out. 

As we reported earlier today, Silencer Shop, which is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits challenging the NFA provisions, plans on transferring suppressors to Brandon Herrera and State Rep. Wes Virdell at 12:01 AM CT on Thursday morning if the DOJ doesn’t request that the stay issued last week remain in place while it plans its appeal. 

Even if that stay is lifted, don’t expect your local gun shop to follow suit and sell you a suppressor without going through all of the steps that are required today. 

I agree 150% with this. There has been a LOT of bad information, and horrible expectation management about what could actually occur and when. I have even some some very shitty legal advice coming from non-lawyers. This is a wonderful opportunity but we are spoiling it.

— WashingtonGunLaw (@GunWashington) August 12, 2026

In the opinion issued last week, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix made it clear that his injunction is not universal, because the Supreme Court has essentially said that courts don’t have the power to issue universal injunctions. Instead, Hendrix’s ruling that 26 U.S.C. §§ 5812(a)–(b), 5822, 5841(a)–(c), (e), 5842(b),5861(b)–(f), (i), 27 C.F.R. §§ 479.62(a)–(d), and 479.84(a)–(d) are invalid applies only to the named plaintiffs in the Jensen and Silencer Shop cases. 

That means that members of Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Texas State Rifle Association, FPC Action Foundation, and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are covered. The commercial plaintiffs (Silencer Shop, Hot Shots Custom LLC, B&T USA LLC, Palmetto State Armory LLC, and SilencerCo) are also covered by the injunction. 

It is not a blanket license for every FFL to start selling NFA items to every customer that walks through the door without submitting a Form 4 and going through all of the additional steps that are required as of today. Here’s what Judge Hendrix wrote in his decision:

Because the injunction remedies the injuries to the plaintiffs, it only covers current and future customers’ transactions with the plaintiffs and their commercial members. The practical benefit to the non-party customers, in other words, “[is] merely incidental.” Therefore, the Court’s injunction does not allow a commercial plaintiff’s customer (or the customer of an associational plaintiff’s commercial member) to avoid the challenged NFA provisions “for all NFA firearms they possess, transfer, sell, make, and manufacture.”

The injunction isn’t nationwide, either. Only the 15 states that are plaintiffs in Silencer Central are covered by the injunction. Those states are Texas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 

In sum, the plaintiffs are entitled to a permanent injunction—but only so far as it prohibits the defendants from enforcing the challenged NFA provisions against the plaintiffs and, where applicable, their agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers—both current and future.

To make matters even more complicated, Hendrix noted that the Jensen plaintiffs are “entitled to relief from two additional NFA provisions that only they challenge; 26 U.S.C.§§ 5842(b), 5861(i).” But the permanent injunction does not extend to the NFA’s regulation of AOWs “as it relates to the Jensen plaintiffs, as those plaintiffs lack standing with respect to those firearms.”

I think Hendrix wrote the injunction as broadly as possible, but when it takes effect it still won’t cover every potential purchaser or seller of the affected NFA items. Don’t get mad at the person behind the counter of your local gun shop when they insist that you still have to go through all of the regulatory steps before purchasing a suppressor or an SBR. 

The injunction also doesn’t cover short-barreled firearms or suppressors that are privately manufactured. It doesn’t extend to private transfers. It covers transactions between the commercial plaintiffs and their customers. Even if you’re a GOA or CCRKBA member, you won’t be able to purchase an NFA item without going through all of the current steps unless you’re making that purchase through one of the commercial plaintiffs. 

All this could end up being moot if DOJ does request a stay at the last minute, but as of 3:30 PM ET on August 12, 2026, this is where things stand. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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