Democrats Could Zap Burdensome Regulations On Gun Suppressors Back To Life After Routing GOP In Midterms

Regulations on suppressors and other items covered under the National Firearms Act could be halted after Democrats take control of Congress in January.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) released guidelines on Oct. 9 on items no longer covered under the National Firearms Act (NFA), noting that state and local rules remained unchanged in the aftermath of a ruling handed down on Aug. 5 by United States District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas, a Trump appointee, striking down the NFA requirements on the grounds that the reduction of the transfer tax to $0 in 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act rendered the registration and processing requirements of the NFA unconstitutional. On Tuesday, though, multiple pro-Second Amendment Republicans lost races for the House and Senate to Democrats who generally support gun control in the South and Midwest, including flipping open seats in Iowa, North Carolina and Texas ,while ousting incumbents in Ohio, Kansas and South Carolina.

After the Senate parliamentarian struck language that removed those items from NFA’s purview during the passage of the July 2025 reconciliation bill, Congress reduced the taxes to $0. Gun-rights groups filed suits challenging the applicability of the law shortly after the legislation was signed.