The NFA isn’t just outdated; it’s unconstitutional. Both its registration rules and its taxes on firearms have no historical precedent, violating the Second Amendment. Even today, federal and state excise taxes on guns share the same flaw.
In the recent discourse around the potential removal of suppressors and short barrel rifles from the provisions of the National Firearms Act (NFA) and its tax and registration requirements, a point made repeatedly was that if the tax was repealed but the registration stayed, the latter would be illegal as it was only ever justified by the former.
This is indeed correct, as from its inception, the NFA was justified as a tax, with the registration being incidental to that tax and only existing ostensibly to ensure the tax was properly paid for each NFA item sold. Then-Attorney General Cummings was clear about this in his testimony to Congress during the debates over the bill in 1934:
By Kostas Moros


