A federal challenge involving longtime Texas Gun Rights ally TJ Roberts has gained new legal support from three recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Texas Gun Rights previously reported that Roberts v. ATF is one of several lawsuits challenging the federal government’s continued registration of suppressors and short-barreled firearms after Congress reduced the related National Firearms Act taxes to zero.
The latest development is not a new lawsuit or a repetition of the original challenge. Instead, attorneys in Roberts v. ATF, Brown v. ATF, and Jensen v. ATF have filed supplemental notices explaining how three Supreme Court rulings issued in June strengthen their existing constitutional arguments.
Those decisions may make it considerably harder for the federal government to defend the registration system Congress left behind.
Three Supreme Court Decisions Change the Legal Landscape
The supplemental filings point to Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections & Public Safety, Wolford v. Lopez, and United States v. Hemani.
Each decision addressed a different legal dispute. None directly decided the constitutionality of the NFA.
But the plaintiffs argue that the principles announced in those cases bear directly on the government’s defenses in the pending NFA litigation.
Together, the decisions strengthen three central arguments:
- The Necessary and Proper Clause cannot be transformed into an independent federal police power.
- Courts must begin with the Second Amendment’s plain text before considering historical restrictions.
- Registration and licensing cannot be treated as interchangeable simply because both involve government paperwork.
The Jensen plaintiffs presented those arguments in a July supplemental filing in the consolidated Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF litigation pending in the Northern District of Texas. Similar filings were submitted in the Roberts and Brown cases.
The Necessary and Proper Clause Has Limits
The government has argued that NFA registration may remain constitutionally permissible as a means of supporting taxes that still apply to manufacturers and dealers.
The plaintiffs respond that this theory would stretch the Necessary and Proper Clause far beyond its proper role.
That clause allows Congress to enact measures needed to carry out powers specifically granted by the Constitution. It does not give Congress a general authority to regulate any activity it chooses.
The supplemental filing argues that Landor reinforces this limit. According to the plaintiffs, requiring ordinary Americans who owe no NFA tax to register their suppressors or short-barreled firearms would not be merely incidental to collecting taxes from businesses.
It would represent a major expansion of federal power—one that could theoretically allow Congress to regulate the activities of untaxed Americans in extraordinary detail whenever some related industry remains taxed.
The question is therefore narrower and more consequential than whether registration might be administratively useful.
The question is whether Congress has a constitutional power authorizing it.
Courts Must Start With the Second Amendment’s Text
The plaintiffs also argue that Wolford strengthens their claims under the Second Amendment.
Under the Supreme Court’s modern framework, a court must first determine whether a challenged law concerns conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text. If it does, the restriction is presumptively unconstitutional, and the government must establish that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The Jensen filing argues that this threshold should be straightforward.
A short-barreled rifle is plainly a form of an arm. A suppressed firearm is also a form of an arm, and regulating suppressors directly affects the possession and use of firearms.
According to the filing, Wolford makes clear that courts cannot import questions about historical regulation, common use, or supposed dangerousness into that initial textual inquiry. Those issues belong later in the analysis, where the government bears the burden of proving its case.
That distinction matters because it prevents courts from creating a special exception for NFA-regulated items before the government is ever required to produce historical evidence.
Registration Is Not the Same as Licensing
The supplemental filings also challenge attempts to compare the NFA registry with ordinary “shall-issue” licensing.
The difference concerns both how the systems operate and why they exist.
A licensing process generally evaluates whether a person is legally disqualified from possessing or carrying a firearm.
Registration tracks a particular firearm, identifies its owner, regulates its transfer, and imposes criminal penalties when the item does not appear in the government’s records.
The Jensen filing argues that Wolford and Hemani require courts to examine those real-world differences rather than treating every administrative firearm restriction as constitutionally equivalent.
That argument directly challenges the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Peterson, which characterized NFA registration as comparable to a presumptively lawful licensing system. The plaintiffs contend that the newer Supreme Court decisions require a complete text-and-history analysis instead of such a categorical shortcut.
What Comes Next
The courts overseeing Roberts, Brown, and Jensen must now decide what effect the new Supreme Court rulings have on the pending challenges.
The supplemental filings do not guarantee victory, and each case may proceed differently depending on its claims, procedural posture, and jurisdiction.
But the government’s burden is becoming clearer.
It must identify a valid constitutional power supporting the remaining registration system, explain why the Second Amendment does not prohibit that system, and produce a genuine historical analogue for tracking particular firearms and their owners.
Administrative convenience will not be enough.
Neither will simply calling registration a form of licensing.
TJ Roberts once considered joining Texas Gun Rights to fight for the Second Amendment in the legislature. Instead, he put himself through lawschool, was elected to the Kentucky House and is now part of a legal effort asking federal courts to confront the constitutional limits of the NFA-–and three new Supreme Court decisions may have strengthened that effort at a critical stage.
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