Restoring Second Amendment Rights

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of restoring our Second Amendment rights.

Earlier this year, I worked diligently on and proudly voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on July Fourth. Due to my hard-fought efforts, this monumental law delivers the most significant legislative win for our Second Amendment freedoms in almost a century.

Throughout the negotiations, I fought to restore our Second Amendment rights, ultimately securing a measure to zero out the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms under the draconian National Firearms Act. This tax had been on the books since 1934, representing both an unconstitutional and financial barrier to our Second Amendment rights. Thankfully, starting January 1, 2026, American citizens will no longer be subjected to this unnecessary and unconstitutional taxation.

However, the burdensome transfer and registration requirements linked to the zero tax have so far remained. Yet, it was Congress' clear intent to repeal the NFA registration by eliminating the NFA taxation. After all, the two are inseparably linked. Without the tax, the associated registration requirements no longer have a legal standing. In fact, had it not been for the radical, partisan Senate Parliamentarian, this intent would have been explicitly written in the bill text.

Apparently, what the Senate Parliamentarian didn't understand is the history and mechanisms of the National Firearms Act. Congress enacted the NFA in 1934, imposing an excise tax of $200, equivalent to nearly $5,000 today, on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms.

Congress enacted the NFA pursuant to its taxing power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in Sonzinsky v. United States, 1937, upheld the constitutionality of the NFA's registration and transfer provisions as ``supportable as in aid'' of Congress' proper exercise of the taxing power. Furthermore, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Constantine, 1935, held that a tax that doesn't generate revenue cannot be justified as a tax.

Therefore, NFA registration serves as the mechanism by which ATF accounts for the tax paid on each firearm, identified by its serial number. The tax stamp affixed by the ATF on an NFA application reflects both the firearm's serial number and the amount of tax paid for the transfer.

Moreover, the NFA's criminal provisions pertain exclusively to the failure to pay or register the payment of the tax with the ATF. The registry is a tax registry, a registry of the tax paid on each firearm cataloged by the serial number of each firearm.

Again, NFA registration and taxation are inseparably linked. You cannot have a registration of the tax paid on a firearm when there is no tax.

Last month, on Veterans Day, I led 30 of my House Republican colleagues in sending a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi to reaffirm congressional intent behind the zeroing out of the NFA tax provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as well as to urge that the DOJ adopt this position in all litigation concerning this matter.

Unfortunately, the DOJ's recent brief in a lawsuit involving NFA registration defends the draconian NFA firearm registration and ignores congressional intent.

First and foremost, the legal argument to defend and keep the NFA registration simply isn't there, plain and simple. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the tax on a broad class of firearms regulated under the NFA, the constitutional foundation for applying the NFA's transfer and registration requirements to those zero-tax firearms no longer exists. These requirements now improperly operate without any corresponding exercise of Congress' taxing power.

As the Supreme Court upheld the NFA's provisions only as ``in aid'' of that taxing power, and since the relevant excise taxes have been repealed, the transfer and registration requirements must likewise be understood as repealed with respect to the firearms now subject to the zero tax.

The Department's recent filing ignores this reality and instead offers a theory that would convert the NFA from a tax statute into a freestanding gun registry, an outcome Congress has never authorized and has repeatedly rejected. Even the 1986 Firearm Owners' Protection Act prohibited a Federal registration scheme: `` . . . nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.''

In addition, when Congress reduced the ObamaCare penalty to zero during President Trump's first term, the Department of Justice refused to defend the underlying flawed law. Clearly, the DOJ is fully empowered to decline to defend statutory provisions that no longer rest on a valid constitutional basis. It has exercised that authority before and must do so again here, this time in defense of Americans' Second Amendment rights.

When I came to Congress, I promised my constituents that one of my top priorities would be to not only fight to protect our Second Amendment rights but to restore what we have lost. The National Firearms Act of 1934 is an unconstitutional relic that has infringed on these liberties for far too long. We must take this historic opportunity to ensure both taxation and registration on suppressors and short barrels are gone for good.

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