Missouri AG Sues ATF Over Suppressor Overreach

I owe Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway an apology. I blasted her for not defending the state’s Stand Your Ground laws recently, and really felt that was a big betrayal of the Second Amendment community. This was not a universally held opinion, by any means, but I call them like I see them, and while I still would have preferred to see a vigorous defense of the law, there might be reasons I wasn’t privy to.

Why am I feeling so magnanimous?

Because she’s doing something based enough that I don’t care what she failed to defend in the past.

She’s suing the ATF for overreach on suppressors.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, joined by plaintiff Dave Marshak, has sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to stop federal registration requirements that restrain law-abiding Missourians who want to own suppressors and short‑barreled rifles.

“Law and order and the Second Amendment go hand in hand. A government that respects the Constitution has empowered, law‑abiding citizens who can protect themselves and their families. It does not paper over rights with red tape,” said General Hanaway. “The ATF’s heavy-handed restrictions on suppressors threaten lawful firearm use and undermine the rights protected by the Second Amendment.”

The complaint argues the federal government’s restrictions are unconstitutional as applied to suppressors and short‑barreled rifles because they are protected arms under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decision in Heller strongly affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms for self‑defense. Consistent with the framework later articulated in Bruen, the complaint asserts that there is no historical tradition of requiring Americans to register protected arms and that suppressors and short‑barreled rifles are commonly used for lawful purposes, including safer training, hunting, and self‑defense.

General Hanaway argues that when Congress zeroed the National Firearms Act (NFA) making taxes and transfer taxes for suppressors, short‑barreled rifles, and short‑barreled shotguns, the law’s constitutional basis as a tax measure dissolved. Even so, the federal government continues to enforce extensive registration and data‑collection requirements, backed by criminal penalties, that Missouri argues no longer have a valid constitutional justification and conflict with the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Missouri is asking the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to declare that the NFA regulations for these untaxed firearms exceed Congress’s dispensation of powers and violate the Second Amendment as applied to suppressors and short‑barreled rifles. Missouri also asks the court to block the ATF and DOJ from enforcing those provisions and related regulations.

Read the filed complaint here.

There are already lawsuits along these lines, so I doubt this is the one that will tip the scales, but it’s still important because any of those other lawsuits challenging them could be dismissed for whatever reasons. 

The underlying rationale is sound. The NFA was created as part of the federal government’s authority to levy taxes, not to control guns. As a result, the tax being gone means the reason for the regulation’s existence is null and void.

There’s simply no manner in which that’s untrue.

It won’t stop anti-gunners from pretending otherwise, of course, but since we can dismiss them entirely, and not just because a lot of them are “fat and wrong.” No, we can dismiss them because there is no universe where they’ll actually acknowledge that the law is unconstitutional. I mean, it was like pulling hen’s teeth to get any of them to admit that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had overstepped her authority banning all lawful carry of firearms in Albuquerque unilaterally. Do you think they’ll ever admit the NFA has problems if the taxes are removed?

Never. Gonna. Happen.

So, since it’s entirely possible that some or all of the other cases might fall apart for some reason, even if unlikely, and that any ruling on behalf of the plaintiffs with regard to injunctions will benefit all residents of Missouri, it makes sense.

And this is a better defense of the Second Amendment than telling an anti-gun district attorney to sit down, shut up, and pretend to be a bump on a log.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

Help us continue to report on their efforts and legislative successes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.