NFA Rollback Week Five: State Law Is Now the Dealer's Job

By Fred Thompson • Published November 13, 2026

Five weeks after ATF stopped enforcing the NFA's approval and registration requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and "any other weapons," this week's news came from state capitals rather than Washington. Ohio sent a bill to the governor's desk. Florida's attorney general told police and prosecutors how he reads his own statute. Montana Republicans rolled out bills for January.

The easy read is that the paperwork era is over. The accurate read is narrower, and it matters more at the counter than in the headlines: the federal forms largely went away, but the state-law question and one unresolved federal transfer gap now land on the dealer.

Ohio: on the governor's desk, not law yet

Ohio's Senate Bill 214 passed the House 69-27 on Tuesday and cleared the Senate on concurrence 21-9, sending it to Gov. Mike DeWine. The bill removes suppressors, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns from Ohio's "dangerous ordnance" list, and ends the state requirement that a suppressor owner register it in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. Under current law that classification is what puts an unregistered can or short barrel in fifth-degree felony territory.

Read the tense carefully. Until the governor signs and an effective date arrives, Ohio law still reads the old way. Federal enforcement discretion does not rewrite a state statute, and ATF's own guidance is explicit that the Gun Control Act still bars transferring a firearm in violation of state or local law, with prosecution and licence revocation on the table for willful violations. Ohio shops should quote the current text, not the pending text, and be ready for the calls that follow the headline.

Florida: an opinion from the top lawyer is not a repeal

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's five-page memorandum of Nov. 6 tells the state's police agencies and prosecutors that section 790.221's exception for firearms "lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law" now covers short-barreled rifles and shotguns, because ATF no longer requires registration for them. He adds that mere possession does not supply reasonable suspicion or probable cause, and that his office will not defend a conviction under that section on appeal when the only defect is a missing federal approval, registration or stamp.

That is meaningful guidance and a real change in how Florida agencies are expected to act. It is also not a statute. Section 790.221 stays on the books, machine guns are untouched, the memo binds the attorney general's office rather than every prosecutor or court, and interstate transport of an SBR or SBS still needs an approved Form 20. Dealers in the state now have to explain a distinction most customers have never had to think about.

Montana: January is the target

Montana Republicans have duplicate bills drafted for the 70th Legislature, which opens Jan. 4, aimed at aligning state law with the federal change — Sen. Wylie Galt requested the drafts, with Sen. Carl Glimm and Rep. Braxton Mitchell carrying them. Attorney General Austin Knudsen has said the state still needs its own law changes. Montana is the clearest example of the pattern: federal guidance moved in October, states will move through 2027, and in between the old state text governs what a shop may legally transfer. Dealers there can check who is already listed in the state's FFL dealers in Montana directory while they wait.

The gap nobody closed: the dealer transfer

Here is the part of the story that gets skipped in the statehouse coverage. Short-barreled rifles and shotguns are still statutory "firearms" under the Gun Control Act, and 18 U.S.C. 922(b)(4) prohibits an FFL from selling or delivering one except as specifically authorized by the Attorney General. The NFA approval process used to satisfy that requirement. The court enjoined the NFA process; it did not enjoin 922(b)(4).

ATF says no regulatory mechanism currently exists to authorize those transfers, that it is drafting forms and regulations as quickly as it can, and that until then it will not enforce 922(b)(4). That is a temporary forbearance, not a rule, and it puts the judgment squarely on the licensee.

What still applies, in plain terms:

Form 4473, a NICS background check and your records for every retail transfer.
Prohibited-person rules, unchanged.
State and local law, enforced federally through 922(b)(2).
Special occupational tax for businesses dealing in NFA firearms.
Form 20 approval to move an SBR or SBS across state lines.
Machine guns and destructive devices under the full NFA process, $200 tax included.

The compliance risk has moved from filling out the right form to making a defensible call. That is a harder control to run, and it is why the shops handling this well are the ones with a written policy instead of a verbal one.

What a workable counter policy looks like

Write it down. State which items you will and will not transfer, so the answer does not change with the person working the counter.
Date your sources. Keep a folder with the ATF open letter and FAQ, your state's current statute text, and any state AG guidance, with the date you checked it.
Price it. A published transfer fee and turnaround expectation removes the most common reason a caller hangs up.
Ask counsel once, in writing. One opinion letter on your state's text is cheaper than one bad transfer.

How customers are finding you this week

Buyers do not read open letters. They type "FFL dealer near me," "FFL transfer near me" or "FFL lookup," then compare the shops that come back on three things: transfer fee, hours, and whether the shop will handle the item they bought — a private-party rifle, an online order, and now increasingly a suppressor or a short barrel. Many of them verify the licence first through ATF's eZ Check before anything ships. A stale listing, a phone that rings out, or a page that never mentions NFA items loses the sale to the next result, which may be the shop across town that answers all three.

That is the practical reason to keep your listing current: shoppers comparing FFL dealers in Florida and FFL dealers in Ohio are doing it with a question your policy already answers. If you have not put your transfer fee, NFA handling and hours where customers can read them, add your transfer fee and NFA policy to your free dealer listing — it takes an account and your licence, and it is the difference between being found and being skipped.

The supply chain is already treating NFA as ordinary inventory

Celerant's new integration with Silencer Shop is the tell. The two companies are wiring suppressor and NFA catalog data directly into dealer point-of-sale and e-commerce, with electronic purchase orders, min/max replenishment and drop ship — one more line item in a network of roughly thirty distributor integrations, rather than a special-order project. When the software layer stops treating suppressors as an exception, customer expectations follow. Shops that still run NFA by phone call and sticky note will feel that gap before they can name it.

ATF Director Robert Cekada, who signed the October open letter, has spent recent weeks in industry interviews signaling that enforcement attention belongs on violent crime rather than paperwork. Treat that as a posture worth tracking, not a guarantee worth building a business plan on.

What we're watching

DeWine's signature or veto in Ohio, and the effective date that follows.
The first Florida prosecution that tests the memo against a courtroom.
ATF's 922(b)(4) forms and rule — the actual unlock for dealer SBR and SBS transfers.
Montana on Jan. 4, and whether other states with old registration text follow Ohio's route or Florida's.
Whether distributors keep broadening NFA catalog access as state law clears.

— Fred Thompson, Publisher, FFL Search