The president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained arguably the “greatest restoration” of Second Amendment rights in a century, and the Justice Department is on board.
(Video Credit: Fox News Digital)
Over the years, many American freedoms that have been squashed or taken away outright have vanished by bureaucratic nudges and regulations. Now, gun owners are rejoicing after the DOJ agreed not to appeal a ruling removing an obstacle to purchasing suppressors and more.
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) addressed the ruling by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas regarding the National Firearms Act of 1934 provision on suppressors, short-barreled firearms and more.
“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,” said the congressman as the OBBBA changed a tax on the goods from $200 to $0, allowing for an additional federal registration to be deemed unconstitutional.
Clyde called it “the greatest restoration in almost 100 years” as he went on to tell 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.”
NEARLY A CENTURY: Silencers and short-barreled rifles are officially deregulated after the Trump DOJ declined to appeal a federal court ruling that struck down registration requirements under the National Firearms Act of 1934.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, who led the legislative push to… pic.twitter.com/8jIfGmKlaP
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) August 15, 2026
As had been reported, following the ruling, the Justice Department decided against appealing the decision. Credit for that was in part owed to Clyde and nearly 50 other Republican lawmakers who penned a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche urging as much.
“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,” wrote the lawmakers in part.
Where it concerned public reception of the ruling, while opponents of the Second Amendment were unsurprisingly miffed at the deregulation, holding fast to the notion that freedom reduced public safety, proponents were not only celebrating, they were reportedly lining up like it was Black Friday.
Filming outside the Palmetto State Armory store in Greenville, South Carolina — respectfully tilting the camera upward to avoid doxxing any customers capitalizing on the restored freedom — the National Association for Gun Rights shared that there was a line of “about 100 people” waiting for their opportunity to make a purchase.
“History is still being made inside. Suppressors are flying off the shelves with NO tax stamp,” the post detailed, as it was expected more people would show up as word spread of the ruling.
Update:
History is still being made inside. Suppressors are flying off the shelves with NO tax stamp.
Things are slowing down for now, but we expect it to get crazy later. https://t.co/up1Ysai6ic pic.twitter.com/5vu56gvLxi
— National Association for Gun Rights (@gunrights) August 13, 2026
Clyde added, “When you protect the Second Amendment, which protects every other amendment in the entire Constitution — I think that’s the teeth behind the Constitution.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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