U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) is qualified to judge the enormity of a recent Second Amendment legal victory perhaps better than any of his congressional colleagues. After all, he built Clyde Armory in the Peach State before his neighbors sent him to Washington.
So, when he tells Fox News Digital that the recent eradication of the federal registration requirement for suppressors and other NFA items is historic, the shooting community listens.
After all, as a noted Supreme Court Justice once observed, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Owning firearms and related products is a right, not a privilege
“If you can tax something legitimately, then you can actually destroy it through increased taxation,” Clyde explained. “You might, quote, ‘have the right on paper,’ but you don’t really have a right because you can’t afford the right. Is that really a right? It’s not.”
The representative added that the $200 NFA tax, established in 1934 and collected through January 1, 2026, was the entire legal basis for registration requirements.
No tax, no registration.
DOJ initially decided not to pursue appeal of federal judge’s ruling
Items including suppressors, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other firearm-related goods had to be registered with the federal government even after the tax was gone.
But on August 5, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas found the mandate unconstitutional as it applied to the plaintiffs and others affiliated with them.
Clyde and dozens of like-minded lawmakers urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) not to appeal the ruling, and the agency concurred–at least for now. The DOJ has several weeks to ultimately choose whether to abide by the decision or reverse course.
For the Georgia congressman, the choice is clear.
“The right to free assembly, the right to freedom of religion, the rights of freedom of speech, the right of the free press, and the right to take your grievances to the government without fear of persecution or prosecution–that’s the First Amendment, and that’s what the Second Amendment protects,” Clyde declared to Fox News.
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