The U.S. House just voted to block one of the gun confiscation lobby’s favorite backdoor registration schemes: using credit card companies to track gun and ammunition purchases.

H.R. 1181, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, passed the House by a 221-201 vote and now heads to the U.S. Senate.

For Texas gun owners, this fight should sound familiar.

Texas Gun Rights joined efforts in Austin to pass the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act in 2023 — a law aimed at stopping banks, credit card companies, and payment processors from surveilling, reporting, or tracking firearm, ammunition, and accessory purchases through special merchant category codes.

Texas led. Now Congress is trying to catch up.

The Gun Registry They Didn’t Want to Vote On

The gun confiscation lobby does not need to pass a formal gun registry if banks and credit card companies can build one for them.

That was the entire point of the firearm-specific merchant category code scheme.

Flag the gun stores.

Track the purchases.

Store the data.

Hand it over when the government, activists, or anti-gun politicians come asking.

They call it “public safety.”

Texas Gun Rights calls it what it is: a backdoor gun-owner registry.

TXGR Warned This Was Coming

In 2023, Texas Gun Rights warned lawmakers that financial institutions were being turned into private-sector gun control enforcers.

The Legislature listened.

The Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act helped stop this scheme in Texas before it could become another weapon against law-abiding gun owners.

Because once gun purchases can be tracked, the next steps are obvious:

• Watchlists.
• Suspicious activity reports.
• Account shutdowns.
• Political pressure campaigns.
• Financial blacklists.

That is the future the gun confiscation lobby wants.

The Senate Needs to Finish the Job

The House vote is a good step, but the fight is not over.

H.R. 1181 now heads to the Senate, where anti-gun politicians will do everything they can to protect the financial surveillance machine.

Gun owners should not be tracked, flagged, reported, or punished for exercising a constitutional right.

Not by the ATF.

Not by politicians.

Not by banks.

Not by credit card companies.

And not by woke corporations taking orders from the gun confiscation lobby.

Texas showed the country how to fight back. Now Congress needs to finish the job.

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights keep fighting back against gun registries, financial surveillance, and every attack on your Second Amendment rights.

A law-abiding Texan should not become a criminal just because he crosses into a hostile anti-gun state.

But that is exactly the trap created by America’s broken patchwork of carry laws.

A gun owner can be perfectly legal in Texas, drive across a state line, and suddenly be treated like a criminal for exercising the same constitutional right.

The Second Amendment does not stop at the border.

The Permit Trap

National reciprocity has long been sold as the solution.

And to be clear, forcing anti-gun states to recognize carry permits from other states would be a major improvement over the current legal minefield.

But reciprocity still accepts the gun control lobby’s basic premise:

That your right to bear arms depends on a government-issued permission slip.

Texas Gun Rights rejects that premise.

The right to carry is not a driver’s license. It is not a privilege. And it should not depend on whether a bureaucrat issued the correct card, collected the right fee, or approved the right paperwork.

Congress Should Pass REAL Constitutional Carry

That is why Congress should pass H.R. 645, the National Constitutional Carry Act, introduced by Congressman Thomas Massie.

Massie’s bill is designed to protect the right to carry firearms in public nationwide — without forcing law-abiding Americans to beg the government for permission.

Senator Mike Lee has introduced the Senate version of the National Constitutional Carry Act, which his office says would protect the right to carry legally purchased firearms without a permit nationwide.

That is the fight gun owners should be demanding.

Not watered-down reciprocity.

Not another federal permission-slip scheme.

Not a carveout that protects only those who already paid fees, took classes, submitted paperwork, and received government approval.

REAL Constitutional Carry. Nationwide.

No Compromise on the Right to Carry

Anti-gun states have spent years turning state lines into traps for gun owners.

They want Texans disarmed the moment they enter hostile territory.

They want travelers confused, intimidated, and scared to carry.

And they want law-abiding Americans to believe their constitutional rights depend on zip codes, paperwork, and political permission.

Texas Gun Rights has a different message:

Your right to self-defense does not disappear when you leave Texas.

If Congress is serious about protecting the Second Amendment, it should stop nibbling around the edges and pass the National Constitutional Carry Act.

The right to keep and bear arms means the right to carry.

No permission slip.

No government fee.

No anti-gun state veto.

No compromise.

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights fight for REAL Constitutional Carry nationwide and stop the gun control lobby from turning state lines into traps for law-abiding gun owners.

The federal government is backing down from its fight to defend the ban on carrying firearms at ordinary post offices.

The Department of Justice has moved to voluntarily dismiss its appeal in the case challenging the decades-old federal restriction on carrying firearms inside post offices and on surrounding postal property. If granted by the Fifth Circuit, the district court’s permanent injunction will remain in place.

That is a major win.

But the post office carry ban is not fully dead for every gun owner in America.

The Ban Is Crumbling

Texas Gun Rights previously warned that the post office gun ban had taken a major hit — but Texans still were not fully free.

That remains true.

According to Firearms Policy Coalition, the lower court victory protects present and future members of FPC and the Second Amendment Foundation. But constitutional rights should not depend on whether a gun owner joined the right organization at the right time.

The Second Amendment does not stop at the post office door.

Law-abiding gun owners should not be forced to disarm just to pick up mail, drop off a package, or step onto ordinary postal property.

DOJ’s New Direction

DOJ’s decision is also hard to ignore given the growing pro-Second Amendment presence inside the department.

Earlier this year, longtime Texas Gun Rights and Texas Gun Rights Foundation Chairman Barry Arrington stepped down after accepting a position with the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment Section.

Public filings do not say who inside DOJ drove this decision.

But with Arrington now helping lead the Second Amendment Section, this move appears to be part of a much-needed shift away from defending every unconstitutional gun-control scheme left behind by the federal bureaucracy.

Gun-Free Zones Are Under Fire

For decades, federal bureaucrats treated post offices like Second Amendment dead zones.

That argument was always absurd.

Post offices are not prisons. They are not courthouses. They are not secure federal facilities with armed checkpoints.

They are ordinary public buildings used by ordinary Americans every day.

And the right to self-defense does not disappear because the government owns the counter.

Finish the Job

Texas Gun Rights Foundation was prepared to make sure Texas gun owners were heard if DOJ pushed this fight through the Fifth Circuit.

Now DOJ appears to be backing down before that battle even begins.

That is good news.

But the post office carry ban should not merely be weakened, narrowed, or limited to members of certain organizations.

It should be wiped off the books completely.

No gun owner should have to choose between exercising the Second Amendment and using the mail.

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights keep fighting to destroy gun-free zones and defend your Second Amendment rights without compromise.

Washington, D.C. has spent decades using one flimsy excuse to turn local gun possession into a federal crime:

The gun crossed state lines at some point.

That is the hook.

That is the scam.

And now the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals may finally be ready to drag it into the sunlight.

The court has agreed to rehear United States v. Squire en banc, reopening a major fight over whether Congress can use the Commerce Clause to criminalize firearm possession simply because a gun or ammunition once moved in interstate commerce. The Fifth Circuit’s rehearing order even drew a warning from Judge Stephen Higginson that the court had “welcomed the possibility” of holding that Congress’ Commerce Clause power cannot support § 922(g).

The Feds’ Favorite Gun-Control Trick

The government’s theory is simple.

If a firearm was made in another state, Washington claims it can regulate possession of that gun forever.

No sale required.

No shipment required.

No trafficking required.

No actual interstate commerce required.

Just possession.

Under that theory, a gun sitting in a home in Texas can become a federal case because it was manufactured somewhere else years earlier.

Texas Gun Rights sees this for what it is: a federal police power dressed up in Commerce Clause language.

This Fight Is Bigger Than Squire

Squire involves 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal prohibited-person statute. A prior Fifth Circuit panel affirmed Curtis Squire’s conviction after he pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, while preserving his right to appeal.

But the no-compromise issue is much bigger than one defendant.

The question is whether Washington can federalize gun possession with a paper-thin interstate-commerce connection.

For years, courts have let federal prosecutors get away with it.

A gun was made in one state and later found in another.

That was enough.

If that theory survives untouched, nearly every firearm in America becomes a federal hook.

Where Does Washington’s Power Stop?

The Constitution gives Congress power over interstate commerce.

It does not give Congress a blank check to police every gun owner in America.

But that is exactly how federal gun control operates.

Washington stretches the Commerce Clause until almost every firearm, every round of ammunition, every private sale, and every local possession case can be dragged into federal court.

The Second Amendment gets treated like a privilege.

The Tenth Amendment gets ignored.

And the ATF gets another excuse to stick its nose into the lives of gun owners.

A Long-Overdue Reckoning

The Fifth Circuit has not struck down § 922(g).

This case is not over.

But the court is now staring directly at one of the legal theories propping up Washington’s gun-control machine.

For anti-gun politicians and federal prosecutors, that should be terrifying.

Because if the courts start asking where federal power ends, decades of gun-control assumptions could begin to crack.

Texas Gun Rights will continue exposing and fighting Washington’s gun-control power grabs — chip in today to help keep up the fight.

Texas Gun Rights recently exposed how James Talarico hired a former “Cocks Not Glocks” activist who helped craft gun-control legislation in his Texas House office.

Now, new reporting from the National Shooting Sports Foundation highlights Talarico’s own statements confirming the philosophy behind that record.

Talarico does not treat the right to keep and bear arms as a God-given right government is bound to respect. He treats it as a privilege politicians may license, restrict, and eventually ban whenever they invoke “common sense.”

A Protest Permit Is Not a Gun License

Talarico has compared gun-control requirements to permits for rallies or demonstrations on government property.

That analogy fails.

A permit for exclusive use of a public street, park, or plaza regulates time, place, crowd control, and competing use of government property. It does not authorize government to decide whether someone may possess books, attend church, criticize politicians, or speak inside his own home.

Gun licensing and registration schemes place fees, paperwork, databases, waiting periods, government approval, and criminal penalties directly between citizens and a constitutional right.

No Texan would tolerate that treatment of the First Amendment.

Gun owners should not tolerate it for the Second.

“Well Regulated” Does Not Mean Government-Controlled

During a 2020 town hall, Talarico claimed defenders of the Second Amendment often overlook the phrase “well regulated.”

His implication was clear: those words supposedly grant government broad authority to impose gun control.

That interpretation is historically and constitutionally wrong.

At the Founding, “well regulated” referred to something properly functioning, organized, trained, and prepared—not burdened by registries, waiting periods, storage mandates, or bans on commonly owned firearms.

The Supreme Court also rejected the theory that the Second Amendment protects only militia participation. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home.

The militia clause explains one purpose of the right. It does not erase the operative guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Talarico turns the amendment upside down by using language describing a capable citizen militia to empower the government the amendment was written to restrain.

“Common Sense” Is the Sales Pitch

Talarico has described mandatory firearm-storage laws as “common sense” and supports so-called universal background checks.

The phrase sounds moderate. The policies are not.

Mandatory-storage laws allow government to dictate how Texans keep firearms inside their own homes and may leave a firearm inaccessible when seconds determine whether a family survives a violent break-in.

In Heller, the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s storage requirement because it prevented citizens from keeping operable firearms available for immediate self-defense.

Universal background-check laws commonly criminalize ordinary private transfers, loans, or exchanges unless citizens first receive government approval. Effective enforcement requires a system capable of tracking which firearms exist, who possesses them, and when they change hands.

That is the infrastructure of registration.

Talarico Wants to Ban America’s Most Popular Rifle

Talarico also supports banning AR-15-style rifles—firearms owned by millions of peaceful Americans for home defense, sport shooting, hunting, training, and other lawful purposes.

According to NSSF, more than 32 million modern sporting rifles are in circulation in the United States.

These are not exotic firearms possessed by a fringe minority. They are among the most commonly owned rifles in America.

A politician cannot credibly claim to respect the Second Amendment while demanding a ban on one of the most common classes of firearms in the country.

This Is a Philosophy, Not a Misstatement

James Talarico’s political philosophy is that constitutional rights exist only until politicians decide they are inconvenient.

He may use softer language than some gun-control activists, but the destination is the same: more restrictions, more government databases, more confiscations and fewer rights for law-abiding Texans.

Texas Gun Rights will continue exposing every politician who treats the Second Amendment as negotiable—regardless of how polished the rhetoric or carefully packaged the agenda.

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights expose anti-gun politicians and defend the God-given right to keep and bear arms.

Texas gun owners are leading the nation as Americans purchase suppressors in record numbers following the elimination of the federal government’s $200 National Firearms Act tax.

According to data provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Texas recorded 23,133 NFA background checks in June –– more than any other state in the country and well ahead of second-place Virginia at 18,235 and Florida at 11,782.

Nationwide, the FBI conducted 166,677 NFA checks in June, a 177 percent increase over the same month last year. More than 845,000 suppressor applications were submitted during the first five months of 2026, with approximately 768,000 approved.

The surge sends a clear message: when government removes even one barrier to the exercise of the Second Amendment, law-abiding Americans respond —and Texans lead the way.

But eliminating the tax was not the same as deregulation.

Congress Removed the Tax—But Preserved the Registry

Beginning January 1, Congress reduced the NFA tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other regulated weapons from $200 to zero.

Those items, however, remain trapped under the National Firearms Act.

Gun owners must still submit fingerprints and photographs, undergo a federal approval process, and register their property with the ATF. Suppressors and short-barreled firearms continue to be regulated under the same framework governing machine guns.

That was not supposed to be the final outcome.

The House-passed version of the One Big Beautiful Bill would have removed suppressors from the NFA, while the Senate proposal expanded deregulation to short-barreled rifles and shotguns.

Then the Senate parliamentarian advised that those provisions violated the Byrd Rule and could not remain in the reconciliation bill without 60 votes.

Republican leaders could have challenged that interpretation and forced a public fight over whether unelected Senate staff should be allowed to block the restoration of constitutional rights.

Instead, they surrendered.

The deregulation language was stripped, the tax was reduced to zero, and weak-kneed Republicans like Senator John Cornyn celebrated the remaining half measure as a historic victory.

Texas Gun Rights Refused the Half Measure

Texas Gun Rights refused to participate in the victory parade.

Alongside the National Association for Gun Rights and Gun Owners of America, Texas Gun Rights pressured Republican senators to reject the parliamentarian’s interpretation and finish the job.

These organizations warned that eliminating the tax while preserving the NFA’s registration and enforcement structure would leave the federal gun-control machinery intact and force gun owners to continue seeking government permission before possessing constitutionally protected firearms and accessories.

Not only that, they warned that eliminating the tax only would give Democrats a new weapon to use against gun owners when they regained control — and they were right. 

Other gun groups praised the final bill and moved directly toward litigation.

But gun owners should never have been forced to rely on years of expensive court battles to obtain what Congress had the votes and authority to deliver directly.

Congress Abandoned the NFA’s Original Justification

The parliamentarian’s ruling was especially indefensible because the National Firearms Act was enacted as a tax law.

When the NFA reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Sonzinsky v. United States in 1937, the Court upheld its taxation and registration provisions as an exercise of Congress’ taxing power.

Congress has now reduced the tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms to zero while preserving the registry, federal approval process, and criminal penalties that were supposedly created to administer and enforce that tax.

The government abandoned the tax while retaining the gun-control regime built around it.

That contradiction has opened a major constitutional challenge to the remaining NFA restrictions. Gun owners may ultimately prevail, but only after years of litigation and millions of dollars in expenses that Congress could have prevented.

The Cost of Republican Surrender

Those millions of dollars could have been used elsewhere in the fight for the Second Amendment.

That matters during a critical election year.

George Soros-backed organizations and radical national Democrats are pouring resources into Texas and other states to elect anti-gun candidates, defeat pro-gun conservatives, and build support for Red Flag gun-confiscation laws, universal gun registration, semi-automatic firearm bans, magazine restrictions, and other attacks on gun owners.

The money now required for attorneys, court filings, expert witnesses, and appeals could have helped expose that agenda, educate voters, mobilize gun owners, and highlight candidates willing to defend the Second Amendment.

Instead, donors are being forced to finance a legal battle that Congress could have avoided by refusing to surrender.

Abolish the ATF and Repeal the NFA

The fight cannot end with removing suppressors and short-barreled firearms from the NFA.

For decades, the ATF has waged war against law-abiding gun owners, firearms dealers, and the Second Amendment itself.

No other enumerated constitutional right is subjected to a federal enforcement bureaucracy so directly dedicated to licensing, registering, restricting, and criminalizing its exercise.

Much of that abuse flows from the NFA, which the ATF has repeatedly used to claim sweeping regulatory authority over firearms and accessories.

Through administrative rules and reinterpretations carrying the practical weight of law, unelected bureaucrats have attempted to redefine firearms, criminalize previously lawful conduct, and bypass Congress.

Repealing the NFA would eliminate one of the primary sources of that claimed authority. Abolishing the ATF would ensure that another federal bureaucracy cannot continue inventing new gun-control schemes whenever political power changes hands.

Texas’ nation-leading NFA numbers show how eagerly law-abiding Americans will exercise their rights when government gets even partially out of the way.

Removing the tax was progress. Leaving the registry and federal permission system intact was capitulation.

Texas Gun Rights will never negotiate away the rights of gun owners, declare surrender a victory, or place the political comfort of Republican politicians above its members and the God-given rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Sign the petition today demanding that Congress Abolish the ATF and Repeal the NFA once and for all.

Then chip in to Texas Gun Rights to help continue the unapologetic fight for gun owners and hold every politician accountable-–regardless of party.