The biggest gun control organizations in America—Brady, Everytown, and Giffords—just filed a major amicus brief defending the National Firearms Act (NFA) in Silencer Shop v. ATF, and their arguments reveal exactly how far they’re willing to go to protect federal gun regulations.

In the Northern District of Texas, these groups are backing the DOJ and ATF as they fight to preserve the NFA’s registration and background check requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons.” Their filing frames the NFA as a “public safety” tool, claiming these items are uniquely dangerous and supposedly favored by criminals.

But here’s the problem: the data doesn’t support their claims. Suppressors are almost never used in crimes, and SBRs and SBSs are standard tools for home defense, competition, and lawful firearm owners who benefit from more compact, controllable platforms. Meanwhile, the amicus brief leans heavily on fear-based rhetoric and Hollywood-style assumptions rather than real statistics.

Most revealing is their defense of the NFA’s federal registration system. Even though Congress reduced the NFA tax to $0, these groups insist that full registration must remain in place—despite lawmakers publicly stating the opposite. Their position reinforces what critics have warned for decades: federal registration isn’t about safety. It’s about control.

The amicus also avoids the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard altogether, falling back on the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and New Deal-era reasoning. Why? Because there is no historical tradition of federal firearm registration, fingerprinting, background checks, or permission slips for constitutionally protected arms. None existed in 1791. None existed in 1868. And none existed during any founding-era period relevant to the Second Amendment.

For 90 years, the NFA has survived as a “tax law,” not a gun law. But when the tax drops to zero, that justification evaporates. What’s left is a federal gun control statute with no historical foundation—exactly what Bruen prohibits.

This case could mark the most significant challenge to the NFA in modern history. And based on this brief, the gun control lobby knows it.