Gun Grabbers’ Amicus Brief Ignores History of NFA

The National Firearms Act was the first federal gun control law in the country, only it was never billed as a gun control law. It was sold to the American public and the courts as a tax. The registration of NFA items was simply a way to make sure the tax had been paid on regulated items.

In truth, it really didn’t stop many people from getting NFA items. It really was just a way to make them more expensive by leveling what was then a massive tax on trying to own anything on the NFA list.

Times change, though, and the NFA tax isn’t all that much in today’s money, but it’s still a tax on exercising your rights. It just doesn’t apply to a few items that it used to.

Now, the GOA is challenging the tax, and the DOJ is resisting. The anti-gun forces of the universe, however, filed an amicus brief defending the existing registration.

Despite this change in law, the DOJ continues to enforce the registration framework, arguing that the NFA is still supported by Congress’s taxing and commerce clause powers. In a surprising twist, the DOJ’s position is now being reinforced by an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief filed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Giffords Law Center — the three largest gun control lobbying organizations in the country.

The 21-page brief argues that NFA-regulated items are “especially dangerous” and “easily concealable,” asserting that they continue to pose significant risks to public safety. The gun control groups claim that silencers and short-barreled firearms have been used in crimes, and that requiring registration helps law enforcement trace firearms and prevent their misuse. They further argue that the registration system does not infringe on Second Amendment rights because it merely regulates, rather than bans, ownership.

The brief also relies heavily on Congress’s Commerce Clause authority, claiming that NFA items are part of a national market that Congress has the right to regulate — even when these items are manufactured and possessed entirely within a single state. They argue that intrastate ownership could still impact interstate commerce and justify federal oversight.

Of course, all of that ignores the history of the NFA and what it was intended for.

See, again, it wasn’t actually sold as a gun control law. It was passed under the federal government’s authority to levy taxes. It was a tax, and again, the registration was just to make sure people paid the tax.

But even without that, their arguments are absolutely bonkers on the face of things.

First, short-barreled rifles and shotguns might be somewhat concealable, but they’re not as concealable as handguns, when aren’t on the NFA list. They were originally, mind you, and SBRs and SBSs were included to prevent people from trying to work around the handgun ban, but when handguns were removed from the bill, no one bothered to remove short-barreled long guns. They’re not as “easily concealable” as anti-gunners want anyone to think.

We’re not walking around in trench coats or anything like that all that much anymore, after all.

As for the commerce clause, that’s a slippery slope that even anti-gunners should be wary of going down. If we use that authority on guns, despite the Second Amendment’s “shall not be infringed,” what we’ll have is the authority to regulate literally any product ever. Since none of us go through our lives without using a product of some kind or another, even one we made ourselves, then that means every aspect of our lives is open to regulation without any restrictions on the government whatsoever.

Want to talk politics online? Your phones and computers are products that can be regulated through the Commerce Clause. Who cares if we just make you jump through a bunch of hoops before you can have one, and those might include local authorities granting permission for you to have one? It’s not a big deal, now, is it?

Yeah, this is bogus, but we’re talking about anti-gun groups here who don’t give a damn about the Constitution except when they can try to manipulate it for their own purposes.

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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