Supreme Court asks for Justice Department Position on Short Barreled Rifles

Dean Weingarten in front of the Supreme Court

 

A facial challenge to the federal requirement for registration of and paying a tax in order to possess short barreled rifles has made its way to the Supreme Court. A facial challenge is a direct challenge to the statute, claiming the statue itself is unconstitutional.

The case of Jamond M. Rush v. United States started in February of 2022, in the Southern District of Illinois. Rush was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The firearm was an Anderson Manufacturing AR-15 .223 rifle. The original charge was suppressed by the court.

A superseding indictment, substituting a new charge for the old charge, was issued on August 16, 2022. The new indictment was for the possession of an unregistered firearm, under the National Firearms Act (NFA) presumably for the same Anderson Arms AR-15 type rifle with a 7.5" barrel.

Rush entered a conditional guilty plea to the possession of the rifle under the National Firearms Act (NFA), with the proviso the case could be appealed on the basis of the law being unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and the Bruen decision. The Seventh Circuit upheld the Circuit Court decision, primarily using the 1934 Miller case, which failed to find the 1934 National Firearms Act to be unconstitutional.  Miller, for many reasons, was not a clear statement on the Second Amendment, and had many flaws.

Rush then asked the Supreme Court to grant a writ of certiorari, which would allow the case to be appealed before the Supreme Court. On June 13, 2025, writing for the United States Government, the US Solicitor General, D. John Sauer, waived its right to file a response to the petition for a writ of certiorari.

On July 31, 2025, the Supreme Court requested (ordered) the US Government to file a response to the petition.  Mark W. Smith, the noted AmmoLand contributor, attorney, expert on Second Amendment law, and popular commentator on his youtube channel, the Four Boxes Dinner,  notes this shows a significant interest in the case by the Supreme Court.  The United States Department of Justice has submitted this statement in the Peterson case in the Fifth Circuit, as footnote 9 on page 8:

 Because ordinary firearms, unlike suppressors, are not peculiarly susceptible of criminal misuse, registration laws or taxes targeting such firearms likely would not serve or be proportionate to any legitimate public-safety purpose. See, e.g., Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting) (“requir[ing] registration of individual guns” generally does not serve any legitimate purpose and is usually “aimed at deterring gun ownership”). In addition, a law regulating or taxing the firearm itself would impose a more severe burden on the right to keep and bear arms than regulations on useful but non-essential accessories such as suppressors.

Apply this statement to the Rush case, and it could influence the Supreme Court to grant a writ of certiorari (take the case on appeal).

The case is a straightforward possession case, against the registration and tax requirements of the NFA. The federal government has recently reduced the tax requirement to zero, going into effect on January 1, 2026. The question may devolve as to whether registration of firearms, by the federal government, commonly possessed for lawful purposes, is allowable under the Second Amendment. There is no historical precedent in the law which shows registration of firearms was commonly required in the founding era. 

There are over a million short barreled firearms already registered in the United States under the NFA. Nearly 900,00 are rifles.  That should easily be sufficient to indicate common use for lawful purposes. 

Supreme Court justices read the news and listen to the political debate. They know short barreled firearms only remain in the National Firearms Act because the Senate Parliamentarian ruled they could not be removed as part of the reconciliation bill.

It will be very interesting to see how the DOJ responds to the Supreme Court request (order). The DOJ has until September 2nd to submit its reply.

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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