Republicans’ tax bill would water down a century-old gun law

Tucked into the more than 1,000 pages of the GOP domestic policy bill winding its way through Congress is a provision that would water down a nearly century-old firearms law — changes that the gun industry has sought for years but that gun-control advocates warn would come at the expense of public safety.

The legislation would ease restrictions established by the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) on suppressors — often called silencers — and certain long guns such as short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns. The change would eliminate the $200 federal tax on suppressors and the requirement that owners register them with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Republicans, including Rep. Andrew Clyde (Georgia), who took credit for the provision, said it would relieve citizens of burdensome taxes on their Second Amendment rights. But partially repealing the NFA would dismantle one of the few — and one of the most effective — federal gun laws ever enacted, according to Robert Spitzer, chair emeritus of the political science department at the State University of New York at Cortland and the author of “The Gun Dilemma: How History is Against Expanded Gun Rights.”

“This bill illustrates the muscle of the gun rights people in Congress to pull out provisions that have been in place for 90 years while sort of turning a blind eye to the history of why these things were restricted in the first place,” Spitzer said. He noted that the 1934 law regulated the weapons of choice for Prohibition-era gangsters and criminals. “It was a problem that was essentially solved — or at least addressed effectively.”

Clyde, a vocal opponent of gun control, called the taxes in the NFA “draconian” during a May 21 House debate on the tax and spending bill.

“You can raise the tax so high that almost no one can afford it — then you really don’t have a right at all,” Clyde said. “The Second Amendment is an inalienable constitutional right — God-given — that governments are required to protect, not to tax.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia) holds a pistol stabilizing brace during a news conference on Capitol Hill in 2023.

The NFA’s $200 federal tax requirement was meant to be prohibitive when it was set in 1934, Spitzer said, but it has not changed in more than 90 years. Back then it was equivalent to roughly $4,800 in today’s dollars.

At the time the law passed, states were widely supportive of regulating suppressors, which first appeared on the market in 1909, Spitzer said.

“As soon as they became available, there was a big debate about whether they should be available commercially for the public. At least half the states said no,” Spitzer said.

Gun-control advocates and active ATF agents who spoke to The Post said the NFA has been so effective because it mandates careful tracking of every time a weapon or an accessory is transferred, including in a private sale. Flouting NFA regulations can carry stiff financial penalties and federal prison time.

Critics say the law is a relic of the era of tommy guns and bootleggers and cite the low number of NFA-registered devices used in crimes as evidence that it is outdated. Gun-control advocates and some in law enforcement say the numbers reveal the opposite: The law is working.

There have been just two instances in the past 20 years where an NFA-registered suppressor was used in a crime, including a 2019 mass killing in Virginia Beach where a 40-year-old engineer fatally shot 12 people.

Now, gun lobbyists are trying a new approach to pass deregulation in the tax bill, rather than a standard bill that is subject to a full congressional debate and public scrutiny. In the House version of the tax bill, the provision originally called for only suppressors to be removed from the NFA, but it was expanded in the Senate’s version to include short-barreled firearms. Democrats in Congress are seeking to challenge the repeal effort under the Senate’s strict “Byrd rule” that essentially blocks provisions that have a policy rather than a budgetary effect.

President Donald Trump has urged the Republican-controlled Congress to pass the bill before July 4. But it is not clear whether lawmakers will meet that deadline.

Partially repealing the NFA would eliminate the background check requirement for private sales and would legalize the manufacture of suppressors without a license, according to Mark Collins, director of federal policy for the nonpartisan gun-control group Brady: United Against Gun Violence.

“A 16-year-old could start producing silencers in a 3D printer if this law changes, and that would be perfectly legal,” Collins said. He noted that a 3D-printed gun and suppressor may have been used in the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan in December.

Repealing parts of the NFA would also eliminate the paper trail that investigators rely on to solve gun crimes. The change has worried current ATF staffers, whose agency is facing a more than 25 percent budget cut under the proposed tax bill, including a reduction of 541 of the roughly 800 “industry operations investigators” who perform regulatory inspections of firearms businesses.

Any changes to federal law should include a “balanced approach protecting both lawful gun owner rights and the safety of the communities we serve,” said Tat Shum, a national vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

Shum — who spent about 30 years in local, state and federal law enforcement — said lawmakers should consider the enforcement tools that are tied to the NFA regulations and how removing them could affect prosecutions that rely on the federal statutes to punish egregious violations or repeat offenders.

Suppressors on display at a Sig Sauer booth at a trade show in Las Vegas in 2016.

As gun sales have plummeted since the pandemic, the push for deregulating suppressors and certain firearms has grown more intense, said Brady President Kris Brown. It’s an effort, Brown said, that is chiefly led by the gun industry.

The objective of deregulation, she said, is to sell more firearms: Suppressors cost a few hundred to several thousand dollars and are typically incompatible with guns not designed to accept them. That leaves gun owners with the option of having their firearm carefully machined to accept the accessory, or buying a compatible firearm.

“This is all about profits to the industry,” Brown said.