We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.
The Texas Attorney General’s office brought the lawsuit, saying the law violates the Second Amendment.
A federal appeals court recently blocked an attempt by gun owners and the Texas attorney general to allow the approval of a state gun law that deregulates gun silencers in the state. In other words, gun silencers will remain regulated in Texas for the time being.
In the ruling, the court stated that the plaintiffs in the case were unable to establish whether they suffered injury or were going to.
The lawsuit also contended that Texas is a “sovereign state” and that taxing and regulating the making of firearm suppressors isn’t a valid exercise of power delegated to Washington under either the commerce clause or the necessary and proper clause of the U.S. Constitution.
However, the Fifth Circuit argued in its ruling only that “it is plain that Texas’s asserted quasi-sovereign interest is wholly derivative of the personal Second Amendment interests of its citizens and therefore not a valid quasi-sovereign interest at all.”
It also noted that a state only has legal standing “based on a conflict between federal and state law if the state statute at issue regulates behavior or provides for the administration of a state program, but not if it simply purports to immunize state citizens from federal law.”
The Fifth Circuit’s ruling comes just as the U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8–1 order, upheld a law that prohibits domestic abusers from possessing firearms. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in the case.
“Our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
ATF Warning
At about the same time the Texas law was passed in 2021, the ATF warned Texans that federal rules around silencers, known as suppressors, which require a tax stamp and registrations, are still in effect.
“These federal requirements apply regardless of whether the [National Firearms Act] firearm/silencer has crossed state lines. If you have any questions regarding the federal firearms laws and regulations, please contact your local ATF office,” the bureau wrote.
The National Firearms Act, passed in 1934, was the first federal law to regulate firearms used for criminal purposes.