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CINCINNATI, OH — Four of the biggest names in Second Amendment advocacy just asked a federal appeals court to do something no circuit has done: hold that the National Firearms Act’s registration scheme for short-barreled rifles violates the Constitution.
The National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, and American Suppressor Association filed an amicus brief July 13 in United States v. Machamer, now before the Sixth Circuit. NRA attorney Joseph G.S. Greenlee is counsel of record.
The underlying case is not pretty, and I am not going to dress it up. Federal agents searched Christopher Machamer’s North Canton, Ohio home in January 2024 and recovered AR-style rifles with roughly 9.25-inch barrels, unserialized receivers, suppressors, and machining equipment. He pleaded guilty to five counts, including dealing firearms without a license and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Judge David A. Ruiz sentenced him to five years and five months.
The amici are not defending any of that. Their brief addresses only three NFA provisions, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5812, 5841, and 5861(d), as applied to short-barreled rifles. The question is whether the federal government can make possession of a commonly owned rifle a felony simply because the owner did not register it.
The district court said yes, ruling that SBRs are “unusual or dangerous” and therefore not “Arms” covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text at all. That holding is where the brief hits hardest, and it leans on a decision that is barely three weeks old.
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In Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling striking down Hawaii’s Vampire Rule, the Court clarified that the plain-text inquiry asks only whether a law restricts keeping or bearing any implement used for offense or defense. I covered that decision here. If the answer is yes, the burden shifts to the government to prove the law fits America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. There is no room to smuggle “dangerous and unusual” into the plain-text step, which is exactly what the district court did.
The brief also dismantles the “unusual or dangerous” formulation itself. Under Heller and Caetano, the test is conjunctive. An arm must be both dangerous and unusual to fall outside protection. SBRs are neither. As of June 8, 2026, ATF’s own data showed 1,178,348 registered short-barreled rifles, about the same as the number of lawyers in America, and they are legal in 45 states. Functionally, an SBR is just a rifle with a shorter barrel, more accurate than a handgun and more maneuverable than a full-length rifle.
The history is even worse for the government. The NFA’s rifle barrel-length line was not a crime-fighting measure. It was added in 1934 after a Minnesota congressman worried the bill’s concealable-firearm language might sweep in his constituents’ hunting rifles. The brief calls the SBR provision a historical accident, and notes that nobody in the Senate hearings identified any criminal use of short-barreled rifles.
The government’s proffered historical analogues include a 1631 Virginia census that counted arms alongside corn, hogs, and orchards, and colonial laws restricting arms sales to hostile foreign nations. None of them registered or taxed protected arms owned by citizens, which is the tradition the government must prove exists.
One more piece of context matters. Congress already zeroed out the NFA transfer tax on SBRs, suppressors, and short-barreled shotguns in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The revenue justification is gone. The registry remains, and unregistered possession still carries up to ten years in federal prison.
FPC President Brandon Combs aimed his fire at the Justice Department for defending the scheme, saying fundamental rights are not privileges to be sold back to Americans through special taxes and bureaucratic permission slips.
The Sixth Circuit has already held in United States v. Bridges that the plain text covers even machineguns, with the real analysis happening at the historical step. If the panel applies Bridges and Wolford faithfully, the district court’s shortcut does not survive. Whether the court is willing to follow that logic all the way to the NFA registry is the question, and I will be tracking this case closely as briefing continues.
Read the full article here
