The Justice Department allowed the sixty-day window to appeal Judge James Wesley Hendrix's NFA registration ruling to close without filing a notice of appeal on October 5, finalizing the decision that ended Form 4 registration requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns. CatOutdoors reported the deadline's passage under the headline "The DOJ's Week to Save NFA Registration Ended Without a Single Filing." The Truth About Guns separately confirmed that President Trump had directed the Justice Department not to pursue the appeal.

Hendrix, sitting in the Northern District of Texas, issued the underlying ruling in August in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF. His reasoning turned on Congress's taxing power: the Guns and Gas Tax Relief Act, signed by Trump in July 2025, zeroed out the NFA transfer taxes on suppressors, SBRs, and SBSs. With those taxes reduced to zero, Hendrix found that the NFA's registration and paperwork requirements for those three item classes no longer rested on valid constitutional authority. Machine guns, destructive devices, and other NFA items whose taxes remain intact are unaffected by the ruling.

The injunction has operated on a nationwide basis since August. Silencer Shop completed the first suppressor transfers executed without Form 4 registration since 1934 in the weeks following the initial ruling, and the NFA background check volume has surged in monthly NICS reports as the pent-up demand for suppressor ownership began clearing. ATF Director Robert Cekada said publicly after the ruling that the agency would issue guidance on its new enforcement posture, but as of October 5 that document had not been published.

With no appeal on file, the ruling moves from injunction to final judgment status in the district court, eliminating the procedural risk that a stay or circuit reversal could have reversed those practical gains. The remaining legal activity concentrates on two tracks: civil rights challenges by the Firearms Policy Coalition and Gun Owners of America, which are pursuing broader constitutional arguments about the NFA on grounds beyond the taxing power; and the pending ATF guidance document, which will govern how dealers and buyers document transfers under the new framework.

Representatives Andrew Clyde and Senator Steve Daines, who led congressional pressure on the Justice Department to lock in nationwide non-enforcement, each confirmed through public statements that the appeal period had closed. A separate bill introduced by Representative Lauren Boebert to zero out the last remaining NFA transfer tax — the $200 tax on machine guns — remains in committee.

For buyers who have been in a wait-and-see posture on suppressor or SBR purchases, October 5 removes the last live procedural threat to the current Form 4 exemption. The ATF's forthcoming guidance document is the next milestone to watch.