ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL CO-LEADS OPPOSITION TO ATF RULE ALLOWING AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION FOR MILITARY-GRADE WEAPONS

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL CO-LEADS OPPOSITION TO ATF RULE ALLOWING AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION FOR MILITARY-GRADE WEAPONS

September 08, 2026

Chicago - Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell co-led a coalition of 17 attorneys general in opposing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) latest proposed rule, which would remove important guardrails, allow a flood of military-grade weapons into commerce and threaten public safety with increased gun violence.

Raoul and the coalition's letter to the ATF opposing this proposed rule was its 16th letter in opposition to the ATF's approximately three dozen proposed changes as it seeks to overhaul the firearm regulatory landscape. Raoul and the attorneys general argue the latest proposal, Registering National Firearms Act Firearms that Fall Out of Government Contract, violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and is contrary to the National Firearms Act (NFA).

"This proposal clears the way for defense contractors to make more money from the U.S. government at the expense of our residents and communities' safety," Raoul said. "I will continue to lead efforts to ensure our communities are protected from access to military-grade weapons and that law enforcement agencies are not hampered in their ability trace crime guns."

The NFA regulates particularly dangerous weapons including machine guns, short-barreled rifles and other explosive devices. This proposed rule would create a smoother path for defense contractors who manufacture NFA-regulated weapons for a U.S. government contract to then register and sell any of these particularly dangerous weapons that they ultimately do not deliver to the U.S. government. This would ease the path for those military-grade weapons to come into commerce, including through the black market.

In their letter, Raoul and the attorneys general explain that these extra weapons are described as "falling out of contract" because they were created during the period of the contract but might have been left over from testing, rejected by the U.S. Government for quality or other reasons, or simply exceeded the required number of manufactured weapons within the contract. Currently the extra weapons are not exempt from NFA registration requirements, nor can they be automatically registered for permissible sales. Instead, the contractor must either destroy those extras or obtain a variance from the ATF, a process that has several guardrails. The proposed rule would remove this careful variance review and instead automatically allow for the registration and sale of those dangerous weapons without extra scrutiny. This would remove existing financial incentives for manufacturers to avoid production of excess NFA weapons and instead would incentivize production of more "extra" NFA weapons than necessary because manufacturers could easily register and sell them to allowed buyers.

The ATF's own data shows the flood of these military-grade weapons that would ensue. It admits this would mean an additional $600 million in annual defense contractor profits for destructive devices alone, leaving aside the increase in sales of machine guns and other NFA weapons. By removing safeguards, the proposed rule would make it more difficult for the states to prevent unlawful possession, trace crime guns, investigate trafficking and violent crime, and prosecute offenders.

This is the latest response in Raoul's efforts to push back on the Trump administration's rollback of commonsense firearms regulations that will endanger communities and public safety. In May, the ATF announced the "most comprehensive regulatory reform package in the history of ATF," splitting its broad deregulatory effort into 34 different rule-making notices. In response, Raoul led a coalition of 23 attorneys general with comment letters responding to this barrage, because the so-called "reform package" unlawfully abdicates the ATF's responsibility to implement federal laws passed to keep the public safe. The letters argued that, in advancing these changes, the ATF is unlawfully walking away from its core duty to protect the public and faithfully carry out the laws Congress enacted. Although the ATF's notices say none of these rules were drafted directly or indirectly by any member of the gun industry, its promotional materials and the gun industry associations say otherwise, announcing it as an effort in "partnership with the gun industry," even as the industry stands to profit from these changes at the expense of public safety.

Joining Raoul and Campbell in sending the letter are attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.