Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Newsmax on Tuesday that he and 30 of his colleagues are urging the Trump administration to abandon enforcement of the National Firearms Act now that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated a tax on certain regulated classes of firearms.
Clyde told "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE" the effort is not just an accessory fight but goes to the foundational legality of the law.
"The National Firearms Act actually is a registration database of the tax paid on the firearm by the serial number of the firearm," Clyde said.
"When you don't have a tax, there's no foundation for it anymore, so there should be no registry — and that was the entire intent of Congress when we did that.
"You know, we actually added the elimination of the registry into verbiage in the Big Beautiful Bill, but the Senate parliamentarian stripped it out, saying that, hey, this is policy. But I'm sorry, the two are inseparable — you can't have a tax database with no tax."
He added that the NFA "should be scrapped" for items such as suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and shotguns, and "AOWs" (any other weapons), because the original tax and registration structure is now gone.
Clyde and his GOP colleagues sent a letter Nov. 10 to Attorney General Pam Bondi citing section 70436 of the OBBBA, which eliminated the excise tax on transfers of those NFA-regulated items.
The letter asserted that Congress clearly intended to eliminate the tax and the registration requirements, writing that the "transfer and registration requirements cannot stand without the corresponding excise tax."
The push comes amid a wider GOP strategy to roll back what they have called unnecessary restrictions on the Second Amendment, with Clyde introducing legislation earlier this year — including the Constitutional Hearing Protection Act — that would eliminate NFA regulation entirely for suppressors and other accessories.
Legal experts reportedly say the issue could prompt significant court challenges.
The original 1934 NFA was upheld in United States v. Sonzinsky on the theory that it was a taxing statute, but Clyde's group argued the tax, having been eliminated, changes the constitutional foundation of the law.
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