The Gun Guy Show - Full Show - 10/10/26

And good afternoon, and welcome to The Gun Guy Show here on 93 WIBC.

We're thrilled you're with us.

Uh, it's a big day to have the show because just yesterday, as, uh, it's been promising to do for some time, the ATF came out with guidance, quote unquote, to both the industry, that is gun shops, as well as the public in general on how it's gonna treat the NFA items, and here I'm talking primarily about suppressors or silencers, if you like that term, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns.

Uh, but how ATF is gonna address, uh, regulating those items under the National Firearms Act since we had a, a US court of a...

Or excuse me, a US District Court ruling in the Northern District of Texas here a couple of months ago that came out and said that the NFA is unconstitutional as to those items since Congress reduced the tax on those items to zero through the great big beautiful bill.

And, and, and let me just recap that for a moment.

And I've covered it on this show, and I, I never wanna just repeat prior discussions, but for those, uh, who may be hearing this for the first time, or who need a little refresher on how we got to where we are, i- it's worth discussing.

When Congress passed the National Firearms Act, what is the National Firearms Act? It, it's to govern, uh, certain, what, what Congress would call probably unusual or, or dangerous weapons.

I think those are, are both silly terms, and neither apply.

But to, to r- regulate certain non-traditional firearms, um, uh, largely in 1934 because of drama and fear, I think created by Hollywood around the gangster era and the pro- Prohibition area- era, where you had bank robbers and, you know, and you had the John Dillingers and Bonnie and Clyde, and you had, uh, you know, uh, Al Capone.

And, and, and they were, they were...

it was a very, uh, glorified, I think, uh, amount of violence, uh, around the gangster era, including, you know, gangsters shooting up, uh, either each other or law enforcement or banks, et cetera, with fully automatic firearms like the Thompson submachine gun, or carrying, uh, sawed-off shotguns under their long coats, or maybe short-barreled rifles as well that they could conceal under their outer garments and commit crimes with these things.

And somehow suppressors or, or silencers, which was Hiram Percy Maxim's brand name, um, for what he called a firearm muffler, what you and I would probably call a suppressor today, it got caught up in that with, I think, visions, uh, among congressmen of, uh, of, of, of silent assassins, uh, you know, sneaking around assassinating people with these ultra silent weapons, um, with, uh, so-called silencers on them, even though obviously that's not how a suppressor operates, and it certainly doesn't make a gunshot silent by any means.

Reduces the typical report of a firearm from about 160 decibels to about 130, which is still fairly loud.

But in 1934, Congress passes the, the NFA, the National Firearms Act of 1934, and they said, "Listen, we're not gonna ban all these things." But under the taxing power that Congress has through Article 1 of the United States Constitution, through that Article 1 and that ability to tax, Congress i- is go- simply going to do that.

It's gonna, uh, through the NFA, tax these items, which are short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, uh, what they call any other weapons, which generally is a broad classification of firearms relating to concealable guns other than handguns, and what they call destructive devices, which are typically, uh, explosive devices or very, very large caliber, uh, devices as well, like cannon.

And, and for each of those things, Congress said, "Under our Article 1 power to tax, we're gonna tax them.

We're gonna impose a $200 tax per item," which by the way came from the original retail price of a Thompson submachine gun.

They wanted to impose a 100% tax on a Tommy gun and simply applied the same tax to those other items, except- In some circumstances, to transfer an AOW and any other weapon is just $5 for some unknown reason.

[laughs] But that, that's, that's what Congress did.

But they re- relied, and this is important, they relied exclusively on their ability to tax.

Well, the great big, beautiful bill here passed, what, a year and a half, two years ago, took the tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles and, and, and short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs to zero.

And so the argument arose, and by the way, uh, during the negotiation over the great, big, beautiful bill, and even while it was pending in Congress, a lot of Republicans wanted to take SBRs, SBSs, and suppressors out of the NFA altogether, and there were various iterations of the great, big, beautiful bill that did just that.

But like most things in Congress, uh, there was infighting, and there was not a great consensus even among Republicans for complete- uh, as far as support for completely taking them out of the NFA.

And ultimately, as a compromise, in order to get the damn thing passed, or at least get something done on those items, as part of the great, big, beautiful bill, the compromise was struck, and they simply took the tax to zero, but left them as NFA-regulated items.