Introductory caveat: we are not lawyers, this is not legal advice, everything you read here is my opinion.
Introduction
On August 5th, 2026, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas issued a ruling applying to two related cases, Silencer Co. v ATF and Jensen v. ATF. Both cases challenged the constitutionality of the NFA’s regulation of suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and short-barreled shotguns (SBS’). The ruling issued was for the plaintiffs in both cases - finding that many provisions of the NFA could not constitutionally apply to these firearms1.
In short, this ruling means that suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ are not subject to many NFA regulations, that the ATF may not require tax stamps, registrations or other approvals for an individual to acquire these items.
The ATF chose not to appeal this decision, and later issued guidance and FAQs indicating their intent to not only comply with the injunction, but cease enforcement of the relevant provisions nationwide. The practical effect is that NFA requirements for suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ are now paused at the federal level.
Much of the commentary I have seen in gun circles has been related to how beneficiaries of this ruling can now purchase suppressors, SBRs, etc. I’ve seen comparatively less discussion about how builders can make their own suppressors, SBRs and SBS’.
This guide will provide information about how, right now, you can DIY these items. Read on!
Cui Bono?
Prior to the issuance of the ATF’s guidance on October 9th, 2026, there was significant confusion related to who could actually benefit from this ruling.
The guidance clears this up somewhat, and the current state of affairs is as follows:
This ruling enjoins the ATF from enforcing NFA regulations against the plaintiffs in this case, and plaintiffs’ customers and members.
The ATF has chosen to cease enforcement nationwide of the same provisions they are enjoined from enforcing against plaintiffs
The practical effect, at time of writing, is that every American can now benefit from this state of affairs, but the way in which they benefit, and the risk they undertake, differs slightly depending on whether they are a plaintiff beneficiary or not.
Let us begin by considering three types of beneficiaries:
Commercial Manufacturers:
The first set are commercial manufacturers / sellers of suppressors. These plaintiffs are:
This ruling allows these plaintiffs, and only these plaintiffs, to manufacture suppressors without requiring a Form 1 registration, and to sell these items without requiring a Form 4 transfer.
Simply being a customer of one of these companies does not extend the injunction to you. There’s been a lot of confusion around this. If you bought a random accessory from PSA in 2022, this alone does not extend the injunction to cover you.
The “customer” provision of the injunction applies to these plaintiffs only for people purchasing items that would otherwise be require NFA registration - e.g. buying a suppressor from Silencer Shop - and only for that transaction.
NFA’s cessation of enforcement means that any manufacturer / vendor of these items, not just those listed above, can now make or sell these items without registration / Form 3 / Form 4, and not risk ATF prosecution. As a practical matter, this means that you can visit any vendor and buy a suppressor with only a 4473.
But we’re not really here to talk about buying things, are we?
Gun Rights Orgs and Members:
The second set of plaintiffs are gun rights organizations / policy advocates. These are:
The ruling enjoins the ATF from prosecuting current and future members of these orgs from making suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ without registering a Form 1. From a practical perspective, this removes the totality of the NFA requirement for anyone wishing (solely) to build these items for their own personal use.
I’ll repeat that, because there was a lot of confusion about this early on. The only ATF regulation relevant to a DIYer whose intent is solely to build a suppressor, SBR or SBS for their own personal use, is the Form 1. Form 3s and 4s are for vendors only, and individual builders are not required to pay any special taxes.
Prior to the ATF guidance, it was speculated that while Form 1s were no longer required for beneficiaries, serialization requirements were still in effect - you still had to physically place a serial number on the firearm, even though you didn’t have to actually register that serial number anywhere. Yet the guidance includes serialization requirement in general as part of the cessation of enforcement.
This simplifies things considerably. The ATF is enjoined from requiring Form 1s for any beneficiary of the injunction. These beneficiaries may now legally make as many unserialized, unregistered suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ for personal use without fear of ATF prosecution.
Everyone Else:
There was considerable consternation in the wake of the ruling that it had created a “two-tier justice scheme”, requiring Americans to pay a fee (to a gun rights org) to exercise rights that the court had itself declared constitutionally protected.
Perhaps in recognition of the complexity created by this situation, ATF issued guidance on October 9th ceasing the enforcement of all enjoined NFA provisions nationwide. This in effect creates a class of “indirect beneficiaries”, consisting of “everyone else” not covered as either a plaintiff customer or member of a gun rights org.
This “everyone else” class still benefits from the ruling, but not in the same way. We will discuss this in more depth later - for now, understand that in a practical sense, everyone else too can now make unserialized, unregistered suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ for personal use without (realistic) fear of ATF prosecution.
All this being said, many other laws still apply. We will discuss this further in the next section.
Other Laws Still Apply
We have been very careful with our language up to this point, because despite the tremendous significance of this ruling, there are still significant limitations.
In their guidance, ATF describes five “caveats” to the situation:
The ruling does not allow unregulated sales / business formation
Despite the new NFA posture, suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ are all considered Title 1 firearms and this ruling does not change that. Any regulation applicable to these Title 1 firearms that was present prior to this ruling, except the NFA registration requirement, is still in effect.
One major way that this applies is that if these designs are being sold in a commercial context, standard FFL rules / 4473 requirements still apply. This ruling does not allow private individuals to begin printing and selling FTNs at scale.Non-NFA prohibitions also still apply
Any prohibition on these items not part of the NFA’s registration scheme is also still intact.
For example, it is still illegal for felons and other prohibited possessors to make or acquire these items.This ruling does not affect other NFA items outside of suppressors, SBRs, SBS’.
The ruling is limited in its scope. The NFA as a whole remains on the books and is not “dead.” Other items regulated under the NFA - including machineguns and destructive devices - still require registration and tax stamps.
It should go without saying, but prohibitions on the creation of machineguns is doubly untouched - the relevant NFA provisions are not part of the ruling in any case, and furthermore the Hughes Amendment still separately prohibits possession of newly manufactured machineguns by anyone except a licensed 07/02.Transportation of SBR / SBS still requires notification:
Another untouched NFA provision is that having to do with transporting SBRs / SBS’ across state lines. Individuals wishing to do so must still fill out Form 20s to notify ATF.State laws: this is the big one. Everything I have written here applies federally, but there is significant state level regulation of suppressors / SBRs / SBS’ / AOWs, and those regulations remain untouched.
Many states and localities have their own regs controlling these items. If your state made it illegal to own a suppressor, this ruling does not change that. While you may not get fucked by the ATF, you may still get fucked by your state.
We’ll talk about state laws more in a moment, but let’s first talk about a sixth “caveat” noted by ATF.
Regarding Cessation and Contraband
ATF concludes its guidance, and reiterates in its FAQs, that their cessation in enforcement does not mean that the relevant regulations no longer apply.
Their assertion is that even if ATF chooses not to enforce a Form 1 requirement against a DIYer, that DIYer is still theoretically in violation of the requirement, and subject to “felony penalties and forfeitures”. Their product - the actual unregistered suppressor, SBR or SBS - remains “contraband” even under the nonenforcement scheme.
ATF specifically anticipates many ways that the current legal state of affairs may change, leading to a resumption of the registration scheme. And they assert that while an amnesty / grandfathering scheme is possible, “[f]ederal law does not generally permit subsequent registration of unregistered NFA items”.
I have two things to say about this:
I think there are practical reasons to interpret these statements as threats, shade-throwing - ultimately, FUDD. The overall state of affairs strongly suggests to me that there will be no return to the NFA registration scheme as we understand it.
This does not mean that a new scheme won’t come into effect, but it does mean that a world in which things simply “revert”, and everyone is hauled off to jail, is a statist wet dream. I write more about this in Issue 34 of the Guncad Digest.There is a more practical point that I have seen almost nobody make: the cessation in enforcement does not override the injunction.
We listed above three classes of protected citizens. As a reminder, the first two classes - plaintiff beneficiaries - were created by the injunction, and practically speaking covers all members of the gun rights orgs. The third class was created by the ATF’s guidance, and covers everyone else.
When the ATF threatens that “they may change their minds” about cessation of enforcement, this applies solely to the third class. The ATF can’t change their minds about the plaintiff beneficiaries - per the court order, ATF can never enforce the existing registration scheme against said beneficiaries. It is unconstitutional.
As such, I still recommend that all Americans become members of one of these plaintiff orgs. Membership brings you into the first class and strongly improves your legal position, should the ATF attempt enforcement in the future.
Join today at gunowners.org, ccrkba.org or firearmspolicy.org.
Regarding State Laws
While the situation regarding these items is fairly clear federally, there remains significant confusion about the situation locally, within the individual states. Some states prohibit suppressors, SBRs or SBS’ outright, even if they are legal federally. Even more confusingly, many states allow these items, but tie them in some way to the NFA’s registration scheme.
There are many websites are trying to create summaries of the situation. I’ll be using FFLSafe’s attempt at this in my own discussion, but be aware that other resources may offer different interpretations, and in any case you are ultimately responsible for researching your own state’s laws.
For simplicity, we can divide the states into three categories:
Unrestricted States: these are states where these items are clearly untouched by state level registration. These states are colored green in the chart above.
Ban states: these are states with explicit registration banning or otherwise prohibiting the ownership of these items, regardless of the federal scheme. These states are colored red in the chart above
“NFA tied” states: these are the confusing ones. These states have schemes which in some way tie possession, manufacture, etc. of these items to federal registration or federal laws generally. These states are orange or yellow in the chart above.
What does “tied” mean? There’s two common examples I have seen:
States allow possession, manufacture, etc. if the item is registered with NFA
States allow possession, manufacture, etc. if the item is in compliance with federal law
These are subtly different, and the difference matters in how you cure the issue. Recall the classes of citizens - the two types of plaintiff beneficiaries and everyone else.
If you live in a state that requires compliance with federal law, then you can theoretically comply with state law by being a plaintiff beneficiary. No registration required (though registration will also cure in this scenario.)
On the other hand, if your state explicitly requires NFA registration, only registration can protect you. This creates the strange situation where you must register with an agency that itself is not enforcing registration requirements.
I can’t tell you what to do here, but I will make two notes:
Form 1s are apparently returning at record rates, sometimes within 48 hours.
Unless you live in a state like California, New York, etc., your state likely has far fewer resources or interest in prosecuting state-level NFA item violations, particularly when the law is in flux.
Those are the facts as I see them. I encourage you to research your own local laws and make sure you understand them, and then do what you will.
Summary: What To Do As A Builder
We’ve covered the situation pretty extensively. Let’s wrap it up with a few recommendations I make - which are, again, purely based on my opinion.
Research your local / state laws to understand their pertinent requirements
Use websites like FFLSafe to help, but in the end, do your own reading, or even better, speak to a local attorney.Join a gun rights organization like GOA, CCRKBA or FPC
ATF’s guidance indicates that they will not enforce their regulations against anyone, not only plaintiff beneficiaries - but you improve your position tremendously if you join one of these orgs.
Plus, these orgs are in large part responsible for getting us here. They do tremendous good. That alone is reason to lend them your support.
Join today at gunowners.org, ccrkba.org or firearmspolicy.org.WHATEVER ELSE, BUILD A FUCKING SUPPRESSOR / SBR / SBS
I’ve attempted to mostly confine myself to discussing the law in this post. But let’s briefly pull the camera back and discuss the broader situation.
At this moment, all the winds are blowing in our direction. For at least the next two years, suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ can be made without realistic fear of federal prosecution.
The position of these items in the overall legal scheme is not determined by the law alone. It is determined by their cultural prevalence, their place in the national conversation, and their sheer, raw numbers.
The more of these you make, the more owners created over the next two years, the stronger our position becomes. We have seen this happen over and over again with other goods and schemes - banned items become legal not when the feds declare them legal, but when it becomes hopelessly impossible for the feds to regulate them.
We saw it with marijuana. We saw it with gay marriage. We saw it with pistol braces. Take this opportunity to make this happen with suppressors, SBRs and SBS’ as well.
Subject to Revision
I have updated this post several times as things have developed around this subject. While the ATF’s guidance publication seems to have put a period at the end of this sentence, nevertheless we should expect further developments over time, and I’ll continue to revise and update the post.
As such, I suggest that anyone planning a build should revisit the post immediately prior to clicking “print”. Read it again in full. Make sure no changes have occurred that would affect your plans.
We’re all in this together, and I’ll do all I can to bring you the best info I can. Stay frosty.
Further Reading:
Yes, suppressors are legally considered “firearms".
The GCA still applies, therefore form 1/4’s are still required for SBS/SBR’s.
Yep, you nailed it. This is exactly what I was told when I asked a couple local lawyers that fight at the state Level for gun rights. Down to the letter. Same advice about continuing to serialize, aside from that its printer go brrrrrr.