Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA) led seven of his Georgia Republican colleagues in sending a letter to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr urging him to issue a legal opinion clarifying a discrepancy in Georgia law.
According to the delegation, this discrepancy could prevent law-abiding Georgians from fully exercising their recently restored Second Amendment rights following the landmark ruling in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF.
What was decided in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF? On August 5th, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas delivered a monumental win to plaintiffs in this case.
The landmark ruling struck down National Firearms Act (NFA) registration requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), and any other weapons (AOWs).
The court essentially ruled that these requirements exceeded Congress’s constitutional authority after Congress eliminated the NFA’s transfer and taxation of these arms.
What Rep. Andrew Clyde and the delegation had to say in the letter:
- “Georgia’s criminal code generally prohibits possession of short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, machine guns, and silencers. That prohibition does not apply, however, to a person ‘who is authorized to possess the same because he has registered the sawed-off shotgun, sawed-off rifle, machine gun, dangerous weapon, or silencer in accordance with the dictates of the National Firearms Act.
- “Now that NFA registration is no longer required and, under the court’s ruling, may no longer lawfully be demanded of Georgians covered by the injunction, this provision no longer maps cleanly onto federal law.
- “Read literally, it could be misunderstood to condition Georgia’s exemption on an act of federal registration that a covered person is no longer required, or even permitted, to complete.
- “This ambiguity has deterred Georgians, who are in full compliance with all applicable federal law, from fully exercising their Second Amendment rights, out of a well-founded fear that doing so could place them in violation of Georgia’s criminal code.”
Further Context: Cosigners include Representatives Rick Allen (R-GA), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Mike Collins (R-GA), Clay Fuller (R-GA), Brian Jack (R-GA), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), and Rich McCormick (R-GA).
