Kobach court win ends registration of firearm suppressors

TOPEKA –Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach today announced victory in a case where he defended the right of Kansans to acquire and own firearms.

“Today, the state of Kansas and our fellow plaintiffs won a great victory against the U.S. Department of Justice, which had been wrongly defending an unconstitutional law. The federal government has no right to demand that American citizens ask for permission before putting an accessory on their firearm to protect their hearing,” Kobach said.

A district court in the Northern District of Texas has enjoined the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) from enforcing registration, reporting and recordkeeping requirements that applied to suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns. 

Kansas and 14 other states joined a group of private plaintiffs to challenge these unconstitutional requirements in federal court.

 “Our Constitution provides for a government of limited powers at the federal level. We must always be vigilant to enforce those constitutional limits, especially when government overreach threatens the right of Americans to keep and bear arms,” Kobach said.

 Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, onerous registration requirements for covered firearms were paired with a tax on making and transferring them. Last year, Congress enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) and removed the tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms. Without the tax, Congress lost its constitutional authority to impose the registration requirements. The regulatory provisions have been enjoined as unconstitutional because they now exceed Congress’s enumerated powers.

 The court’s injunction prohibits ATF from enforcing the NFA registration requirements against Kansas gun owners. As a result, Kansans will soon be able to purchase the covered firearms without the burdensome and unnecessary registration requirements that restricted Kansans from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

In addition to Kansas, attorneys general from Texas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming joined the case.

 In December 2025, Kobach also led 21 states in urging another federal district court to find federal registration requirements for untaxed firearms to be unconstitutional. The case is Brown v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, No. 4:25-cv-01162 (E.D. Mo.).