The "Big Beautiful Bill" (BBB) has a lot of proponents, and many detractors.
But few of its provisions provoke quite as much uninformed prate and gabble as the bill's attempt to eliminate "National Firearms Act" taxes on suppressors (commonly called "Silencers", whose main utility is protecting shooters' hearing), "short barreled" rifles and shotguns (with barrels shorter than 16 inches), and "All Other Weasons" - a catch-all category that covers anything outside the standard definition of any other kind of firearm (like a pistol with a foregrip).
Does the NFA make people safer? No - people who jump through hoops to buy guns are almost never a criminal risk.
Like so much about government, it's about money; trying to buy any of these weapons or accessories, in addition to a lot of legal hoop-jumping, and registering and fingerprinting the owner, requires a $200 "tax stamp" for each item:
Why Does a 10.3" Barrel Require a Year of Red Tape—but a 16" Barrel Doesn’t?
— Colion Noir (@MrColionNoir) June 20, 2025
This is my Daniel Defense MK18 SBR with a suppressor. To legally own it, I had to pay $400 in tax stamps, give up my fingerprints, and wait nearly a year. Meanwhile, a nearly identical rifle with a… pic.twitter.com/LVSLEso7oi
It's less a matter of "crime control" than of "pricing things out of reach for proles'.
As with most gun-control debates in legislative bodies with lots of Democrats, there are laughs be found.
Example:
Eliminating the $200 tax on suppressors & short-barrels has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with turning semiautomatic firearms into machineguns.
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 30, 2025
We need mental acuity tests in the Senate for folks like @SenJackReed. pic.twitter.com/F4QSsXN7AM
But when the laughing stops, there are some serious issues.
Among the provisions stripped out from the "Big Beautiful Bill" by the infamous Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, last week, included proposals to eliminate the NFA taxes and registraiton requirements on suppressors, on rifles and shotguns with barrels shorter than 16 inches, and other weapons.
A side issue in a bill that's supposed to be about taxes and spending?
Perhaps. But Trump, and especially the congressional GOP, need gun owning-voters - extremely disproportionally Republican - on board and excited about the BBB, and about the Republican brand in general. And caving in on hobbling the much-hated NFA would be a great way to crush enthusiasm among that most enthusiastic group of voters.
For many, the parliamentarian is the problem:
Yes, correct. Antigunners and Dems basically have veto power on reconciliation because a Dem is the Parliamentarian, and has been for 13 years. No idea why every new majority does not get to pick a new one.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 27, 2025
Max is mocking us, as well he should. We deserve the mockery for… https://t.co/0xGP4sCXRh
Cam Edwards, at our sister publication Bearing Arms, responds to this line of argument:
I have the utmost respect for Kostas Moros, but there's a good reason why Thune has committed to abiding by the parliamentarian's rulings. If the GOP fires MacDonough or simply ignores what she has to say about the budget bill, we can expect Democrats to do the same thing the next time they're in charge of coming up with a budget, which could happen as early as 2027 depending on how the midterms play out.
That would do damage in all kinds of ways, but on firearms specifically Democrats would not only reinstate the NFA taxes and registration requirements, but would almost certainly raise the taxes as well. Even worse, they'd likely place AR-15s and all gas-operated semi-automatic firearms on the National Firearms Act. Gun control activists have already expressed their desire to restrict those commonly-owned arms if they can't ban them outright, and if the budget reconciliation process can be used to remove items from the NFA why wouldn't it also be used to add items to the list of restricted arms?
Gun owners, in other words, need to learn the lesson Democrats didn't after Harry Reid blew up the filibuster in the Senate; the rule you break today can cost you tomorrow when the terms of the battle change.
