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Gun rights advocates are cheering a recent ruling that will make it easier for people to obtain firearm suppressors and certain weapons, with a business founder-turned-lawmaker calling it “the greatest restoration” of Second Amendment rights in almost a century.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who founded Clyde Armory in his home state of Georgia before he was elected to Congress, argued that the regulatory barrier was wrong in the first place because it taxed a constitutional right.
“If you can tax something legitimately, then you can actually destroy it through increased taxation. You might, quote, ‘have a right on paper,’ but you don’t really have a right because you can’t afford the right. Is that really a right? It’s not,” Clyde told Fox News Digital.
“So here we are removing the taxation on a constitutional right from a bill that was passed in 1934. And once you remove the tax aspect of it, then you remove the constitutionality of the registration aspect.”
Smith & Wesson M&P-15 semi-automatic rifles of the AR-15 style are displayed during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center, in Houston, Texas on May 28, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
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Clyde led the charge last year to roll back part of the National Firearms Act of 1934, a push that was ultimately successful in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Under the 92-year-old law, a $200 tax was established on silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other firearms that also required additional federal registration to obtain.
Republicans reduced that tax to $0 in the OBBBA, which gun rights groups then used to successfully argue that the added registration was unconstitutional. The ruling affects the parties that brought the lawsuit and is not a national injunction on the law, however, according to the Associated Press.
But Clyde said it was an “incredible win for the Second Amendment,” adding he hoped “more wins” would come in the future.
Rep. Andrew Clyde speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on February 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“When you protect the Second Amendment, which protects every other amendment in the entire Constitution — I think that’s the teeth behind the Constitution,” Clyde said.
“The right to free assembly, the right to freedom of religion, the rights of freedom of speech, the right of the free press, and the right to take your grievances to the government without fear of persecution or prosecution — that’s the First Amendment, and that’s what the Second Amendment protects,” he added.
Clyde later led 47 Republican lawmakers in a letter urging Attorney General Todd Blanche not to appeal the ruling.
The letter reads: “An appeal would prolong regulatory uncertainty for law-abiding gun owners and businesses and would consume DOJ resources defending a position that this Congress and now a federal district court has said cannot stand.”
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Gun right activists’ celebrations were compounded on Thursday when the Trump administration did not file an appeal to the judge’s ruling, meaning the order could go into effect without pause.
Gun violence prevention groups panned the inaction, however.
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“Today, our government is failing us. At midnight, uniquely lethal weapons and devices — including silencers, short-barreled rifles, and shotguns — were deregulated for the first time in nearly a century,” Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Department of Justice had the opportunity to act to protect our safety, but it failed to do so…Today, the gun industry and silencer dealers are celebrating, while Americans are left less safe.”