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Inside President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” are policy tweaks that would remove taxes and regulations on certain guns, but Senate Democrats aim to gut the changes from the bill.
Tucked into the Senate Finance Committee’s offering to the mammoth bill, which was unveiled earlier this week, are policy changes that would delist short-barrel rifles, shotguns and suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA).
That means those particular guns and accessories would no longer be subject to a $200 federal tax and would no longer need to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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The changes come from the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act, a bill pushed by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., in the upper chamber, and Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., in the House.
Marshall told Fox News Digital he believed the gun language would make Trump’s megabill “even more beautiful,” while Clyde said in a statement the changes would “restore our Second Amendment rights.”
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However, Democrats have vowed to inflict as much pain as possible on their Republican colleagues through the “Byrd Bath” process, which is when lawmakers and their staff work behind the scenes to ensure the litany of policy within the “big, beautiful bill” comports with the Byrd Rule that governs reconciliation.
And the gun language is likely high on the chopping block for Senate Democrats.
“Taxation and registration of firearms under the draconian NFA are inseparably linked,” Clyde said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “I’m confident our pro-2A provision will survive the Byrd Rule, and I look forward to delivering this constitutional victory for the American people.”
Marshall, similarly, wasn’t too concerned the provision would be scrubbed by Democrats in their Byrd Bath pursuit and noted, “That’s what reconciliation bills are supposed to deal with, is taxes.”
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He argued the Supreme Court upheld the NFA, which, despite being primarily a regulatory framework, does include an excise tax. The court upheld the NFA and the excise taxes it imposed as constitutional in the 1930s. More recently, the regulatory framework was upheld by the court in the Bruen decision in 2022.
Still, Marshall viewed the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process, which allows Republicans to pass Trump’s mammoth bill with only 51 votes, as the only chance he and the GOP have to codify the changes to the NFA.
“I don’t see another way to do it,” he said. “I mean, obviously it would take 60 votes. And, you know, I don’t see any other way to make this actually happen.”
Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., declined to get into detail on the exact strategy he and other Democratic lawmakers would use to go after provisions buried in the broader reconciliation text.
But he noted that the point of reconciliation is to focus on spending and budgetary effects and that “a lot of times you see Republicans, very conservative Republicans, try to convince the parliamentarian that something really is spending when it’s really an ideological trophy.”
“I can tell you this, the Byrd Bath is the legislative equivalent of prolonged root canal work,” Wyden told Fox News Digital. “It’s detailed, we’ve begun it, I’m practiced in it. I’ve worked in this area for some time, and my staff is expecting to spend the whole rest of next week digging into it.”
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