via Gun Owners of America,

On August 5, we at Gun Owners of America won our “One Big Beautiful Lawsuit,” against the registration requirements of the National Firearms Act at the district level in Texas.

This is definitely one of the biggest wins for gun rights – ever.

🚨BREAKING🚨

In GOA’s case, a federal court just stuck down NFA registration for:

❌Suppressors
❌Short-Barreled Rifles
❌Short-Barreled Shotguns

GOA & our allies in Congress eliminated the tax.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 is now UNCONSTITUTIONAL as applied.

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 5, 2026

We’re proud to have fought this fight, but it’s not over yet. The Department of Justice still has the opportunity to appeal, and the court stayed its order for seven days to give them time to seek appellate review. Although as of the writing of this article, they have not done so.

Also, the Judge in this case limited protection to members of Gun Owners of America and other named plaintiffs.

We fought for a nationwide injunction, but the Judge did not grant it to us.

So, because of the ruling, we’re encouraging everyone who would like protection from the National Firearms Act’s registration requirements to become GOA members.

Since 1934, the National Firearms Act has tightly regulated Short Barreled Firearms (rifles, shotguns), Suppressors, Machineguns, Destructive Devices, and “Any Other Weapons” (a catch-all term for other firearms that don’t quite fit in the other categories.)

To purchase any of these items, Americans must submit to a lengthy background check process that includes passport photos, fingerprinting, address disclosure, and paying a $200 tax.

That is, until President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” on July 4, 2025.

In that legislation, Congress removed the $200 tax on some of these regulated items.

For short barreled firearms, suppressors, and “Any Other Weapons” or AOWs, the tax was reduced to $0, effective January 1, 2026. Machineguns and destructive devices were not included, and still carry the $200 tax. Thanks to the hard work of Gun Owners of America and our allies, this important change was added to the reconciliation bill and passed into law.

And while GOA fought for a complete removal of the registration requirements, the Senate Parliamentarian removed them at the last second, leading us to call for her removal.

We at GOA were furious that at the last second, an unelected bureaucrat removed arguably the most important part of the legislation – the registration of these firearms.

While there was still a massive win for gun rights, it was incomplete.

So, we sued.

The bureaucrats at ATF and DOJ did not want to give up their registry. They fought us tooth and nail in court, arguing that just because the tax was reduced to $0, it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t register that “tax” as paid, and keep their gun registry intact.

But, thanks to a few cases from the 1930s, the Supreme Court had already ruled on this issue.

SCOTUS ruled in the 1935 case United States v. Constantine that when a tax stops functioning as a genuine revenue-generating measure, it stops functioning as a tax, and courts must evaluate if it is in fact a regulation disguised as a tax.

Which is exactly what a $0 tax on these NFA-regulated items is.

These regulations cannot be justified as “necessary and proper” as the Department of Justice argued in our case. The court also rejected the government’s fallback argument that the Commerce Clause could carry the scheme, finding no sign Congress ever invoked it. The entire constitutional foundation – Congress’s taxing power, that the National Firearms Act rested upon – was gone, so therefore the registration requirements that went along with the tax went as well.

So, on August 5 – a little over a year since we filed our lawsuit – U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas ruled that the items that had their taxes reduced to $0 were not subject to the registration and regulatory requirements of the National Firearms Act. The consolidated cases are Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF.

“[T]he Court concludes that the challenged NFA provisions exceed Congress’s Article I enumerated powers and are therefore unconstitutional… [Gun Owners of America is] entitled to a permanent injunction against the challenged NFA provisions.” https://t.co/iyr4teQtN9 pic.twitter.com/UZA6waIAqc

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 5, 2026

But, the fight doesn’t end here. The Department of Justice still can appeal our win. We’re prepared to fight this as long as it takes, and we’re confident that the law is on our side.

The Department of Justice could also decide not to appeal this ruling and let it take effect nationwide.

GOA members have been contacting their Senators and encouraging them to get Attorney General Todd Blanche to commit to not appeal this decision.

This Department of Justice likes to refer to itself as “the most pro-2A DOJ in history.”

Let’s make them walk the walk, instead of just talking the talk.

*** Gun Owners of America is the only No Compromise Gun Lobby in Washington DC

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 10 calling for spacing out childhood vaccines.

The order recommends administering the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in three shots in separate visits.

“The Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations also recognize that the combined measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available and that, to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits,” the order states.

The executive order calls for the attorney general to take “appropriate measures to further meritorious legal actions challenging state laws that conflict with states’ constitutional and Federal statutory obligations related to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under the law, including, to the extent applicable under Federal law, States’ obligations to provide religious and medical exemptions from childhood and adolescent immunization requirements.”

Public health experts say that vaccination delays could increase the chances that children are infected with diseases that vaccines can prevent before they return for their next appointment.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren – even though the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations.

Polls show that most Americans support school vaccine requirements, but Republicans are less likely than Democrats to view them as important.

Amid speculation that vaccines may be linked to autism, Trump has recently increased pressure on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to determine what causes autism, a goal Kennedy previously vowed to pursue through new research announced last year. During a Cabinet meeting last month, Trump asked Kennedy for an update on the research.

“How are you doing on the autism research?” Trump asked.

“We will have an answer for you,” Kennedy said.

Decades of scientific research have found that vaccines do not cause autism. Childhood vaccines are thoroughly researched, and safety tracking has continued as long as the shots have been given.

Trump’s executive order comes as kids return or are about to return to school.

The order also directs the Department of Justice, Department of Education, and Department of Health and Human Services to “take appropriate action to ensure that their contractors and grantees, including States and localities, are compliant with their constitutional and federal statutory obligations.”

The executive order is a win for the Make America Healthy Again movement, which has expressed skepticism of mandatory vaccines.

During the signing, Trump criticized what he called “72 jabs for … beautiful, healthy, lovely delicate little children.”

Trump called for only 11 key vaccines. He said spreading out the shots was critical and said children should get their shots in one year with five separate visits.

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

Many Democratic Party candidates emerging on what one might call the populist left are finding success in primaries across the country. But most of them have a shared liability: they were fully on board with the worst excesses and abuses of the “peak wokeness” that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing, enduring and contaminating most of our institutions for several years after.

Most of these successful candidates are quite young for elected officials: they are now in their 30s or even late 20s. That means that most of them were indoctrinated and – since they were on the left – essentially forced to spout all the new “woke” jargon and convictions that were manufactured overnight by frenzied mobs.

One such candidate is Francesca Hong, a Democrat with a significant polling lead in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race. It is hard to overstate how much of a woke fanatic she was. Not even the most cringe and manifestly deranged views from that era evaded her advocacy. They are all there.

The one the national media has latched onto was various tweets and Zoom meetings where she seems to have expressed opposition to the beloved American holiday Thanksgiving, because it “makes some folks very uncomfortable.” (Just as a side note, one of the most abominable linguistic aberrations imposed by woke warriors is the seemingly amiable but in fact grating and aggressively ideological use of the word “folks” or “folx” to replace “people.”) That most of these movements were driven by legitimate or at least reasonable policy concerns does not excuse the resulting fanaticism, excesses, and authoritarian posture used to punish those who questioned them.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is one of this populist-left movement’s senior leaders, and she was also a driving force behind some of the worst woke excesses. She’s the one whom most of that movement wants to see run for president, and Kalshi’s predictive market consistently ranks her as a leading candidate:

AOC, on Sunday, went on ABC’s morning news program with Jonathan Karl, where she was asked about some of Hong’s statements, including her call for “abolishing prisons” and “[defunding] the police,” policies and phrases that have proven to be deeply unpopular. AOC, who herself aggressively advocated those policies, sought to laughingly dismiss this all as just some momentary, harmless frenzy of “craziness” that never really meant much and that everyone has all just agreed to move beyond:

WATCH: ABC’s Jon Karl lobs a Francesca Hong softball at AOC. AOC dances around the question, asserts that “Woke One was crazy”- brought about by Covid causing a “huge opening of the Overtone Window.”

JON KARL: So, you have Wisconsin coming up next. Francesca Hong, who is the… pic.twitter.com/Navw0iESNS

— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 9, 2026

It is, I suppose, a net positive that those who imposed extremist woke dogma are now too embarrassed to defend it. When they hear what they were saying and demanding at the time, it now sounds to them as unhinged and insane as it did to many of us back when they were earnestly and angrily spouting it.

But when AOC tries to giggle her way out of her behavior and the behavior of her allies, it actually is more offensive and cowardly than anything else. By invoking the lighthearted and playful terminology of the New York City Councilman whom she quotes – “Woke 1 was crazy!” – she seeks to depict this dark period as just a few oddball, zany moments that never really hurt anyone and thus need not be dwelled on or taken seriously.

But the woke extremism that AOC and her friends imposed on everyone else was anything but playful or frivolous. It was deeply authoritarian, mob-driven, sinister, coercive, and bloodthirsty. It sought to destroy anyone and everyone who did not immediately submit to and recite all of its new jargon and dictates. As was true for the similar hive-mind excesses of the #MeToo movement, the woke warriors – without batting an eye – destroyed careers, reputations, and institutions upon even the slightest transgression of their new dictates.

There are far too many examples of this to chronicle comprehensively. I will thus ask you to recall one particularly ugly and venomous event, which I am selecting in part because I had a front-row seat to witness it and thus recall it as if it were yesterday, and also because it so compellingly illustrates why this historical revisionism – dismissing “Woke 1” as if it were some trivial, harmless fun that went a bit awry – is so repellent.

When nationwide protests broke out over the killing of George Floyd, my long-time colleague at The Intercept, Lee Fang, did what journalists are supposed to do: he went to cover his local protests and interview multiple protesters about what motivated them. He then uploaded the interviews he conducted online.

Most of the ones he uploaded were ignored. But one was most definitely not ignored. The interviewee was a young, black protester. He told Lee that while he broadly supported the Black Lives Matter movement and believed that race-based police brutality was real and widespread, he did not understand why there was so little anger or concern when black lives were taken – murdered – by other black people. If, he asked, “black lives matter,” then why are there protests against only one type of killing while there is steadfast silence about the far more common way that black people in the U.S. die: at the hands of other black people?

Note that it was not Lee who was saying any of this. These words came from one of about a dozen people he interviewed who were participating in the protest. Lee offered no editorial comment on them at all. He simply uploaded the interview alongside all the others he conducted.

Because the view expressed by this young man was so off-key to the compelled consensus that had emerged in the wake of Floyd’s death, his mere posting of this interview sparked widespread and indescribably intense rage. And into that rage stepped a young Intercept reporter who – much to the surprise of many of her colleagues – apparently identified as black.

In response to Lee’s crime of posting that interview, she took to Twitter to denounce Lee as the single worst thing someone could be, especially at that moment: “a racist.” Within hours, tens of thousands of people had retweeted and liked her accusation, instantly branding Lee as a racist. Huge numbers of media cowards from the largest newspapers and TV outlets – ones who never knew anything about Lee or his work – quickly jumped on board, signaling to the mob demanding Lee’s head on a spike that they were on their side. That is always how mob justice works.

Virtually nobody with any sizable media platform was brave enough to stand up and even question the merits of these accusations, let alone defend Lee. Perhaps there were others, but the only one I can recall vehemently doing so was Michael Tracey in his characteristically elegant and restrained manner, prompting all sorts of media personalities to line up and denounce Michael for having the gall to question Lee’s black accuser. That included many of Lee’s own journalistic colleagues, who actually joined in the public denunciations against him.

Along with a couple of Lee’s allies, I spent countless hours inside The Intercept trying to save Lee’s job, knowing that if he got fired for “racism,” it would end not only his work there but possibly his career altogether. It is difficult to overstate what a climate of terror was ushered into every workplace, institution, and society in general.

Lee was ultimately forced to apologize. That gave The Intercept‘s always-cowardly editors an excuse not to fire him. To this day, I feel a great deal of doubt about the role I played: not publicly defending him so that I would have more weight defending him internally; counseling him that a fake and unjustified apology would, at the very least, prevent him from being fired with a gigantic black mark on his name; not waging a more aggressive war on his behalf, etc.

But the climate that was created and imposed as a result of what AOC and her allies now want to laughingly wave away as “crazy” was no joke. Jobs, reputations, and careers were at stake. Many people unjustly had all of those things taken away from them – destroyed – based solely on the whims of mob justice. People were genuinely terrified of thought crimes, no matter how trivial or well-intentioned. I watched countless 45- to 55-year-old journalists and editors adopt a completely new way of speaking and thinking overnight, out of fear that they would attract the woke mob and lose their jobs with even one false step. People watched their every word, knowing – correctly – that a bloodthirsty mob was on the hunt for even the most unintentional deviations from the newly imposed norm.

It should be noted that AOC was not some bystander during all of this. As she has done for every similar moral panic of the left – the incalculably deranged Russiagate conspiracy theories, the life-destroying and due-process-free #MeToo persecutions, COVID censorship – AOC supported and participated in the most extreme woke excesses because she does not have an iota of courage to resist social and political pressures.

In June 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded to the growing demands of “Defund the Police” by slashing $1 billion, or about one-sixth of its overall resources, from the NYPD budget. AOC was having none of it. “Defunding the police means defunding the police,” she insisted. That does not mean reducing budgets or shifting around resources, she argued. She wanted the NYPD defunded in full, and nothing short of that would be sufficient.

If AOC has now changed her mind about all of the brand-new woke dogma she vehemently defended and sought to impose, that would be welcome. But actual regret for past mistakes means taking responsibility for them and explaining what went wrong: whether it be support for the Iraq War, the policies that caused the 2008 financial crisis, Russiagate, COVID, etc. At the very least, it requires acknowledging the damage done to people and their lives, rather than minimizing it as just a benign and noble quest for justice that went a little too far.

If someone wants to stand up and say that they went along with and advocated a bunch of “crazy” ideas and demands because they simply got swept up in the hysteria of the moment – as AOC and her allies are now attempting to suggest – then that is a rather serious self-indictment. I can hardly think of a worse trait in a political leader, or a human being of any kind, than a lack of internal fortitude or personal courage to resist moral panics and accompanying demands for full submission by a gathered mob.

Authored by George P. Brooks via American Thinker,

One of the great ironies of American politics is that every movement swears it’s against censorship – right up until it has enough power to do some censoring of its own. It’s almost adorable.

For years, conservatives rightly criticized Big Tech, universities, corporate America, and legacy media for suppressing dissenting viewpoints. We argued that free speech wasn’t merely a constitutional protection; it was a moral principle. We insisted that bad ideas should be defeated in the marketplace of ideas rather than buried beneath bureaucratic decrees or algorithmic exile.

I agreed then. I still do. Which is why I’m beginning to ask a question that makes some people on my own side a little uncomfortable.

What happens when conservatives become just as tempted to use institutional power to silence people they don’t like? As a Black conservative, I’ve learned that free speech is one of those principles everybody loves until somebody they can’t stand starts talking. Then suddenly the Constitution comes with an asterisk.

Let’s be honest. Every political tribe has its favorite form of censorship.

The Left often dresses it up in the language of safety, inclusion, misinformation, or protecting vulnerable communities. The Right is increasingly tempted to justify it in the language of patriotism, protecting children, combating ideological indoctrination, or preserving public morality. Different vocabulary. Same temptation.

Power has an uncanny ability to convince us that our restrictions are simply common sense while everyone else’s are authoritarian. History suggests otherwise.

Free speech has never been tested by agreeable people saying agreeable things. It has always been tested by offensive people saying offensive things. Defending speech you already like requires no courage whatsoever. Defending speech you find irritating, misguided, or even insulting is where constitutional principles stop being bumper stickers and become convictions.

That’s why I find myself increasingly skeptical whenever anyone begins a sentence with, “I’m all for free speech, but…” I’ve learned that whatever follows “but” usually involves someone deciding which opinions deserve oxygen and which should be quietly escorted out the back door.

The First Amendment doesn’t ask whether an idea is popular. It doesn’t ask whether it polls well. It certainly doesn’t ask whether it might ruin someone’s afternoon on social media.

It simply assumes that a free people are capable of hearing competing ideas without requiring the government – or increasingly, private institutions acting under political pressure – to function as national hall monitors.

Some readers will immediately object. “But George, some speech really is dangerous.” Of course it can be.

Threats, criminal conspiracies, defamation, and direct incitement have long occupied well-established legal categories. That’s not the debate. The debate is whether we have quietly expanded the definition of “harm” until it now includes disagreement itself.

Somewhere along the way, Americans stopped saying, “I think you’re wrong.” Instead, we started saying, “You shouldn’t be allowed to say that.” Those are radically different civilizations.

One believes truth emerges through debate. The other believes truth must be protected from debate.

As conservatives, we should be especially careful here. For decades, we were the ones demanding viewpoint diversity on college campuses. We objected when bureaucrats decided which speakers were acceptable. We criticized technology companies for selectively enforcing their rules. We warned that concentrated cultural power eventually becomes political power.

Were we making a timeless argument? Or were we merely complaining because we happened to be losing? That’s the question history will eventually answer.

Winning elections should never cause us to abandon the principles that helped us win the argument in the first place.

One of the blessings – and frustrations – of being a Black conservative is that I don’t fit comfortably inside anyone’s political script. I’ve been called a sellout by people who think race should determine ideology. I’ve also occasionally been viewed with suspicion by people who assume conservatism requires intellectual conformity.

Both misunderstand what attracted me to conservatism. It wasn’t tribalism. It was liberty.

Liberty means accepting that people will often say things that offend us. Liberty means resisting the seductive belief that if we could only silence enough bad opinions, society would finally become peaceful. It never works that way.

Every censorship regime begins by promising to target only the truly dangerous voices. Eventually the definition of “dangerous” expands to include inconvenient voices, unpopular voices, and finally independent voices. That’s not a partisan observation. That’s human nature.

Politics changes. Power changes hands. The precedents you create today will almost certainly be used by your opponents tomorrow. Conservatives above all people should understand that.

Social media has only accelerated the problem. Every controversy now comes with an online firing squad. We don’t simply disagree anymore – we organize campaigns, demand apologies, contact employers, and measure victory by whether someone’s life has been sufficiently detonated before dinner.

Apparently we’ve replaced “I disagree” with “unsubscribe from his existence.” That’s not justice. That’s vengeance wearing business casual.

The Founders understood something we often forget. Freedom is messy. A republic is noisy. Open societies produce arguments, uncomfortable conversations, and occasionally spectacularly bad opinions.

The alternative isn’t harmony. It’s permission. Permission for whoever happens to hold power to decide which ideas deserve daylight. That bargain has never ended well.

Conservatives don’t strengthen their case by becoming more efficient censors than progressives. We strengthen it by demonstrating that our commitment to liberty survives even when liberty protects people we profoundly disagree with.

Otherwise, we’re not defending free speech. We’re simply negotiating whose turn it is to do the censoring. And that’s not conservatism. That’s just tribalism with better branding.