In a new filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the DOJ’s career lawyers argued that the National Firearms Act’s suppressor rules are a “modest burden” on gun owners and that silencers are merely “nonessential firearm accessories.”
That brief, filed October 14 in United States v. Peterson, defends the conviction of a Louisiana man for possessing an unregistered suppressor.
The DOJ told the court the NFA’s licensing and registration scheme — fingerprints, photographs, background checks, and the infamous tax stamp — is “presumptively constitutional” because it operates like a “shall-issue” permit system.
Let that sink in: the same agency President Trump has been cleaning out is now telling the courts that as long as you jump through enough federal hoops, your Second Amendment rights are safe.
The swamp argument: silencers aren’t “arms”
The DOJ’s brief insists that suppressors aren’t truly protected by the Second Amendment at all.
They’re “useful but nonessential accessories,” the lawyers claim — a category that, under this twisted reasoning, the government can tax, track, and seize without running afoul of Heller or Bruen.
This is bureaucratic rot at its finest. Because if they can strip suppressors of constitutional protection, what’s to stop them from doing the same with magazines, triggers, or optics?
Once they declare something “nonessential,” the floodgates open for regulation, registration, and confiscation.
And just to make themselves sound generous, the DOJ pointed out that under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the tax on suppressors drops to zero dollars starting January 1, 2026.
That’s nice — but the problem was never the tax. It’s the registry. It’s the paperwork. It’s the threat of ten years in prison for failing to comply with a rule that never should have existed.
The Texas connection — and the people paying the price
For Texans, this fight isn’t theoretical.
In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed HB 957, the “Made in Texas Suppressor Law.”
The bill declared that any suppressor made and kept within Texas was not subject to federal regulation under the NFA. It even barred state and local agencies from helping the feds enforce those rules.
Texans thought they were free. They were wrong.
Almost immediately, the ATF — acting under Biden’s regime — issued an open letter declaring that federal law still applied, no matter what Texas said. Then came the raids.
Across the state, Texans who believed their lawmakers and bought or built “Made in Texas” suppressors were hit by ATF enforcement actions.
Some were machinists who made a few cans to sell locally; others were ordinary citizens — including members of Texas Gun Rights — who purchased legal-under-state-law suppressors for their own use.
Not only were their homes searched and their property seized, but now, some of these same Texans are receiving civil-asset-forfeiture notices — legal papers announcing the government’s intent to keep their guns, ammo, and personal items even though they were never charged with a crime.
This is what “modest regulation” looks like in practice.
Paxton’s fight to defend Texas law
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton went to bat for his state.
His office filed a lawsuit to defend the “Made in Texas” law, arguing that suppressors manufactured and sold solely within Texas borders fall outside Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
But the federal courts ducked the issue. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the case for lack of standing, claiming Texans hadn’t yet shown a credible threat of prosecution — even as Texans were being raided by federal agents.
Now, in Peterson, the DOJ is doubling down on that same logic, telling the courts that NFA restrictions are harmless, long-standing, and consistent with “our nation’s historical tradition.”
In plain English: the bureaucracy is still defending anti-gun restrictions — even under Trump’s administration.
Should Texans be hopeful — or worried?
There’s a glimmer of hope.
The Fifth Circuit panel that upheld Peterson’s conviction “assumed without deciding” that suppressors might count as “arms,” leaving the door open for future challenges.
But make no mistake — the DOJ’s framing of suppressors as “nonessential” and its praise of the NFA as a “shall-issue” system is a ticking time bomb for gun rights.
If this view hardens into precedent, every Texan who owns a suppressor under HB 957 will remain at risk.
The fight isn’t over
President Trump has already begun clearing out the DOJ and ATF leadership — replacing the Biden-era ideologues who wrote these briefs with pro-Second Amendment appointees.
But the machinery of federal enforcement doesn’t turn overnight. The Peterson case is a reminder that the fight for gun rights isn’t just political — it’s institutional.
Texans who believed in the “Made in Texas” promise now know that the swamp doesn’t stop at the Potomac. It flows right through every federal office that still thinks Washington has the right to decide what counts as a gun.
Help Texas Gun Rights fight back against the swamp in Washington, Austin, and rogue bureaucrats in the courtroom by chipping in today!
