The Justice Department is trying to keep National Firearms Act registration alive outside a single Texas courtroom. In a Missouri federal court, DOJ lawyers told the bench that nine states cannot win nationwide or statewide relief from NFA registration after the Silencer Shop ruling in Texas.
On October 7, 2026, the Department filed a third supplemental brief. That brief asks the Missouri court to confine suppressor and short-barreled rifle deregistration to the original district. Other states, the government argues, cannot piggyback on the Texas decision and drop NFA registration on that basis alone.
The states have asked for a universal injunction. The Justice Department opposes it. Firearm Policy Coalition has placed the government's filing in the public record. The dispute is the geographic reach of relief: one district versus nine states, or the entire country.
The Silencer Shop ruling in Texas produced deregistration of suppressors and short-barreled rifles in that district. Nine states now seek the same result in Missouri federal court, statewide or nationwide. DOJ wants NFA registration to remain the rule everywhere the original Texas order does not already control.
That is a bid to treat a constitutional right as a local permit. The Second Amendment does not change at a district boundary. A statute that requires Americans to register arms does not outrank the Constitution, and a later administration cannot lock Texas deregistration inside one courthouse so the rest of the country stays under the NFA.
The Missouri court will decide whether the nine states get the injunction they requested or whether relief stays bottled up in the original district. If the court accepts the Justice Department's argument, suppressor and short-barreled rifle owners outside that Texas district remain under NFA registration. If it rejects that argument, those nine states obtain relief without a separate lawsuit in every federal district and without waiting on Congress.
Federal officers swore an oath to the Constitution, not to the National Firearms Act. What happens next is that Missouri order on the scope of relief, and whether NFA registration survives as a nationwide default after Texas already let it fall.
References
- https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/10/08/doj-opposes-states-request-for-universal-injunction-in-nfa-case-n1234063
- https://www.firearmspolicy.org/brown
- https://assets.nationbuilder.com/firearmspolicycoalition/pages/14003/attachments/original/1791412237/2026.10.07_114_D's_Third_Supplemental_Brief.pdf?1791412237