A federal permanent injunction limiting enforcement of several National Firearms Act provisions took effect at 12:01 a.m. Central on August 13, after a seven-day stay expired without the government seeking appellate relief during that period. The operative final judgment is not nationwide. It protects the plaintiffs in the consolidated Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF litigation and, where applicable, their current and future agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers.

What the judgment enjoins

Judge James Wesley Hendrix entered judgment on August 5 in the Northern District of Texas. He ruled for the plaintiffs on their enumerated-powers claims and dismissed their Second Amendment claims without prejudice as abandoned. The court concluded that after Congress set the NFA making and transfer taxes at zero for silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and any other weapons, the challenged registration and approval machinery could no longer rest on Congress's taxing power. The court did not decide that the affected firearms are protected by the Second Amendment.

The order bars ATF, DOJ, the named federal officials, their successors, and people acting with them from enforcing specified NFA provisions for untaxed firearms against covered parties. Those provisions include the Form 1 and Form 4 approval requirements, parts of the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record requirements, and related possession, making, and transfer offenses. Additional marking provisions are enjoined only as to the plaintiffs and their qualifying members and customers. The judgment expressly excludes any-other-weapon regulation from the relief granted to the plaintiffs.