Now that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has concluded that dropping the NFA taxes and registration requirements on suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and “any other weapons” doesn’t pass the ‘Byrd Bath’ and must be stripped from the Republican’s budget bill, the race is on to tweak the language in an attempt to at least remove the taxes on those items.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tells The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski that he’s “confident” the bill can be amended to eliminate the NFA tax on suppressors, short-barrel rifles and shotguns, and “any other weapons” without a negative ruling by MacDonough, calling it the GOP’s “plan B”.
Gun control activists are taking a victory lap on social media, which seems a little premature to me. Meanwhile, many Second Amendment advocates are demanding that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President J.D. Vance disregard the parliamentarian’s ruling and keep the full repeal of both taxes and registration in the bill.
Yes, correct. Antigunners and Dems basically have veto power on reconciliation because a Dem is the Parliamentarian, and has been for 13 years. No idea why every new majority does not get to pick a new one.
Max is mocking us, as well he should. We deserve the mockery for… https://t.co/0xGP4sCXRh
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 27, 2025
I have the utmost respect for Kostas Moros, but there’s a good reason why Thune has committed to abiding by the parliamentarian’s rulings. If the GOP fires MacDonough or simply ignores what she has to say about the budget bill, we can expect Democrats to do the same thing the next time they’re in charge of coming up with a budget, which could happen as early as 2027 depending on how the midterms play out.
That would do damage in all kinds of ways, but on firearms specifically Democrats would not only reinstate the NFA taxes and registration requirements, but would almost certainly raise the taxes as well. Even worse, they’d likely place AR-15s and all gas-operated semi-automatic firearms on the National Firearms Act. Gun control activists have already expressed their desire to restrict those commonly-owned arms if they can’t ban them outright, and if the budget reconciliation process can be used to remove items from the NFA why wouldn’t it also be used to add items to the list of restricted arms?
This is what a lot of the base is going to understandably come to believe if @LeaderJohnThune throws up his hands and claims firing Harry Reid’s Parliamentarian would just be too partisan. https://t.co/0zEUgtfs1L
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 27, 2025
The base might believe it, but I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment. There hasn’t been much, if any pushback, to the language repealing NFA taxes and registration requirements from Senate Republicans, and we would have heard about internal squabbles and demands to strip that language out of the Senate Finance Committee’s initial proposal if it was causing major heartburn for senators. We’ve heard that about some of the other portions of the bill, like the selling off of public lands and dispute over state-and-local tax deductions, but there hasn’t been much talk at all about the NFA language.
It’s also important to remember that while this is the most important part of the budget bill for many gun owners, it’s still one small portion of a much larger piece of legislation. I think apathy, not outright hostility, is a more accurate assessment of where most Republican congresscritters stand on the issue; they’re not actively opposed to the Senate Finance Committee’s language, but it’s not a top priority for many of them either. They’re certainly not going to blow up the tradition of adhering to the parliamentarian solely to remove taxes and registration requirements on suppressors and short-barreled firearms.
None of this takes away the sting of MacDonough’s ruling. As we’ve discussed before, the registration requirement is inherently tied to the taxing of these NFA items, because it’s essentially a registry of who paid the tax. If removing the taxes will comply with the Byrd Rule, as Cornyn believes, then it makes no sense to keep the registration requirement in place.
I don’t like MacDonough’s ruling. I don’t think it makes any sense. But I’m also a realist, and the demands to fire the parliamentarian or ignore her rulings outright are not only shortsighted, but would lead to an expanded NFA the next time Democrats control the budget process.
Let’s hope Plan B works, but let’s also work to get enough pro-2A senators and representatives elected in the midterms so that we can pass good bills on their own, instead of having to tuck them into budget bills that only require a simple majority.
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