Curtis Hallstrom

Multiple admin sources tell me the DOJ official pushing to appeal the case to the 5th Circuit is attorney Brett Shumate, who oversees the civil division at DOJ. Sources expressed shock at the extent to which Shumate seems to be controlled by anti-2A and anti-gun career bureaucrats within DOJ. “This would be like the Biden admin appealing a decision that gives Planned Parenthood infinite funding,” one source familiar with the internal debate told me. “It makes zero political sense.” A federal district court recently ruled that because Congress eliminated the $200 tax on suppressors, the burdensome National Firearms Act (NFA) scheme to require continued registration of suppressors is no longer constitutional. The NFA was originally written and implemented as a way to implement gun control via the tax code. Its supporters argued that because they were only taxing purchases of certain firearms and firearm accessories, the law was a permissible use of congressional taxing authority rather than an infringement on the Second Amendment. The recent elimination of the tax stamp for suppressors makes the ongoing registration scheme unconstitutional, the federal district court reasoned. Second Amendment activists cheered the ruling. If DOJ were to appeal the ruling to the 5th Circuit, however, it would greatly increase the risk of it being overturned, allowing an arguably unconstitutional national gun registration scheme to continue.