After originally failing to win approval from the House Budget Committee on Friday, the reconciliation bill was approved on a second vote Sunday night after several Republicans withdrew their “no” votes and voted “present” instead.
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Rep. Andrew Clyde, who’s been a staunch advocate of using the budget bill to remove suppressors from the National Firearms Act, was one of those who allowed the bill to move on to the Rules Committee, and in a post on X.com he said those efforts will continue.
When we spoke to NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford about the budget bill and suppressor language last week, he too said that the Rules Committee markup would be the best opportunity to expand the suppressor language after a more modest measure taking the NFA transfer tax to zero was included by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Though Clyde’s post only references suppressors, the Georgia congressman (and federally licensed firearms dealer) has also been in favor of using the reconciliation process to remove short-barreled firearms from the National Firearms Act; something a growing number of Second Amendment organizations and advocates are also demanding from Republican lawmakers, who have the opportunity to make substantive and fundamental changes to the NFA this year.
As the coalition wrote in their letter to the chairs of the House Budget and Rules committees, “the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act represent measured, practical steps toward aligning federal law with contemporary realities and constitutional principles,” adding, “their inclusion in the reconciliation bill is not merely a policy preference but a moral and legal imperative.”
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We, the signatories, therefore, demand that the House Committee on Rules and the committee on Budgets act decisively to ensure that the publicly available, broadly supported, modified language of H.R. 404 and H.R. 2395 are incorporated into the reconciliation package in their entirety, without dilution or compromise. The American people deserve legislation that respects their rights, promotes public health, and dismantles unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. We strongly urge you to heed the calls of millions of gun owners and Second Amendment advocates who have made their voices clear. The time for action is now.
Clyde and other hardliners on the Budget Committee have made it clear they want substantial changes to the reconciliation bill before it hits the House floor, or else they may vote against it. We know the legislation is going to be revised in the Rules Committee, but whether or not it will be amended to include sections of the Hearing Protection Act and the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act is very much an open question, and likely hinges on grassroots lobbying by gun owners and Second Amendment advocates.
Time is of the essence, with the Rules Committee set to begin its markup of the reconciliation bill on Wednesday morning, and gun owners are going to have be loud to be heard over the din of other interest groups intent on making their own changes to the bill. It’s also worth noting that while the House Freedom Caucus has called for deeper cuts to the federal budget, in its own post on X on Sunday night it made no mention of removing either suppressors or short-barreled firearms from the NFA as part of its red lines.
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We need to make this a top priority for House Republicans, and that means its time to make some noise. Contact your representative today and demand they sign on to the changes proposed by the coalition of Second Amendment groups, and hopefully we can have some fundamental reforms to the NFA included in the “big, beautiful bill” by mid-week.
