This week, the Texas legislature made a curious move on gun policy.
They sent SB 1596, a short-barrel shotgun and rifle legalization bill, to Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, where he’s likely to sign it. But that legalization is less expansive than people might assume. That’s because it only impacts state law, and Texans will still have to comply with federal short-barrel firearm regulations.
However, it may end up as something more than a symbolic act because of what’s going on in Congress. And it is an initiative gun-rights activists will need to recreate in a number of other states if they want silencer deregulation to stick.
That’s because Texas’s law is similar to many others around the country. As is often the case with many gun laws, Texas regulations on short-barrel guns mirror federal regulations. In this case, Texas law outlaws possession of short-barrel shotguns and rifles unless they are registered with the ATF under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
Therefore, if Congress removes short-barrel firearms from the purview of the NFA, that will cause serious legal problems for owners in Texas. If it becomes impossible to register short-barrel guns with the ATF, it becomes impossible to legally possess them in Texas without this change.
Delisting short-barrel shotguns and rifles from the NFA is not part of the reconciliation package that made it through the House of Representatives last week. However, it is something all of the major gun-rights groups are working to get added into the bill as it makes its way through the Senate over the next few weeks.
While it’s far from guaranteed delisting any kind of firearm from the NFA as part of the GOP’s budget bill, if it does end up happening, Texans won’t be caught off guard. There won’t be a scramble to update state law to ensure lawful gun owners don’t suddenly become criminals by no fault of their own.
Of course, this foreshadows a bigger problem.
Though short-barrel gun delisting didn’t make it into the House budget bill, delisting silencers did. But they face the same potential hurdle as short-barrel firearms. Some states require owners to hold an NFA registration in order to legally possess silencers under state statute.
Not every state operates this way, but quite a few of them do. Some pretty populous ones, too. Colorado and Arizona are examples.
Of course, some gun-rights groups have already thought about this problem. The American Suppressor Association is backing several bills similar to the one in Texas. In fact, the bill in Arizona has already passed the House.
So, in the end, Texas isn’t really legalizing short-barrel shotguns or rifles in the layman’s sense. They’re already legal to own in the state, after all. What legislators are actually doing will ensure that remains the case even if Congress delists the firearms from the NFA.
Gun-rights advocates will have to work on getting other state lawmakers on board. It should be a relatively low-stakes ask. If the delisting effort in Congress fails, nothing practical about the legality of silencers or short-barrel firearms changes. If it succeeds, states that preemptively change their laws can avoid a potential bit of chaos.
2 Responses
I remember there was some kind of architectural precedent that State laws were only supposed to be able to enhance freedoms/be less restrictive than Federal laws; not vice versa. But it seems second class rights (or worse, as Snope/OST shows) aren’t treated that way. I try to be positive and look at frameworks; but it’s quite hard to respect them when they’re so readily ignored. I wonder if there’s the opportunity for progress if a Texas resident, subject to the Fifth Circuit protection/civil rights “standing”, under this law, is prosecuted in a (completely inverse) Ninth Circuit state somehow. Would take some careful positioning, such as a Coastal resident with vacation home in Texas, but tax burden or residency requirement status clearly in Texas with a SBS under this removal. If civil rights aren’t supposed to “end at state borders” and FOPA actually meant what it said. Hard not to be serious and sober when current reality is anything but. I respect your honest taste, Steven.
Thank you, Nathan. I do my best to deliver on the promise of sober, serious reporting. I know it’s a rare focus in our industry these days, and I take the commitment seriously.