Boebert Introduces Bill to Eliminate Remaining NFA Taxes on Machine Guns and FFLs

May 26, 2026
8:00 am

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Rep. Lauren Boebert’s latest proposal strikes at the heart of the National Firearms Act’s most enduring revenue stream by wiping out the $200 transfer tax that still applies to machine guns, destructive devices, and the special occupational tax paid by FFLs who deal in those items. The move is more than symbolic; it recognizes that these taxes, originally sold in 1934 as “public safety” measures, have long functioned as de-facto bans once inflation and regulatory layering priced most citizens out of legal ownership. By removing the financial barrier without touching the registration or background-check requirements, the bill keeps the existing paper trail while restoring a measure of affordability that the NFA’s architects never intended to survive into the twenty-first century. For the broader Second Amendment community the legislation signals a tactical shift from pure deregulation toward targeted tax repeal—an approach that sidesteps the political third rail of repealing the Hughes Amendment while still delivering tangible relief to Class III dealers and the shrinking pool of pre-1986 transferable machine-gun owners. If enacted, it would lower the cost of entry for new SOT holders, potentially expanding the number of businesses that can service NFA items and thereby increasing the constituency that has skin in the game when future restrictions are proposed. Critics will claim the change invites “more guns on the street,” yet the data show that legally registered machine guns have been involved in vanishingly few crimes since 1934; the real effect would be to normalize the idea that a constitutional right should not carry a perpetual excise toll. Strategically, Boebert’s bill also sets up a useful contrast heading into the next election cycle: lawmakers who vote against it will be on record defending an 89-year-old tax whose original rationale—Depression-era gangsterism—has been eclipsed by modern crime patterns that show zero correlation with NFA compliance. That framing turns the debate away from the emotionally charged term “machine gun” and toward a simpler question of whether the federal government should continue to profit from the exercise of a enumerated right. In an era when inflation-adjusted NFA taxes have quietly become a six-figure barrier for some items, eliminating them is both good tax policy and a quiet but potent affirmation that the right to keep and bear arms is not for sale.

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For the broader Second Amendment community the legislation signals a tactical shift from pure deregulation toward targeted tax repeal—an approach that sidesteps the political third rail of repealing the Hughes Amendment while still delivering tangible relief to Class III dealers and the shrinking pool of pre-1986 transferable machine-gun owners. If enacted, it would lower the cost of entry for new SOT holders, potentially expanding the number of businesses that can service NFA items and thereby increasing the constituency that has skin in the game when future restrictions are proposed. Critics will claim the change invites “more guns on the street,” yet the data show that legally registered machine guns have been involved in vanishingly few crimes since 1934; the real effect would be to normalize the idea that a constitutional right should not carry a perpetual excise toll.

Strategically, Boebert’s bill also sets up a useful contrast heading into the next election cycle: lawmakers who vote against it will be on record defending an 89-year-old tax whose original rationale—Depression-era gangsterism—has been eclipsed by modern crime patterns that show zero correlation with NFA compliance. That framing turns the debate away from the emotionally charged term “machine gun” and toward a simpler question of whether the federal government should continue to profit from the exercise of a enumerated right. In an era when inflation-adjusted NFA taxes have quietly become a six-figure barrier for some items, eliminating them is both good tax policy and a quiet but potent affirmation that the right to keep and bear arms is not for sale.

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