Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre was formed on July 3, 1889 to make military rifles for the Belgian government. Formed in Herstel, Belgium, their first rifle was the Model 1889 Mauser.
The rifle was chambered in 7.65×53. It was not until New Year’s Eve in 1891 that the first of 150,000 of these rifles were delivered to the Belgian Army.
According to their history, the company diversified into making ammunition and later bicycles to get them through slow times. It was this last endeavor that led to a fortuitous partnership with none other than John Moses Browning.
In 1897, FN sales manager Hart O. Berg traveled to America to learn about bicycle technology developments. While in Hartford, Connecticut, he ran into a past coworker, one John Moses Browning, who was still working with Colt, and wanted help manufacturing a new self-loading pistol.
As I said, a fortuitous partnership without which we would not have such classics as the Auto-5 shotgun, the Model 1900 semi-auto pistol, and the Browning Hi-Power as perfected by Browning’s protege Dieudonné Saive.
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill passed the House today and will be sent to President Trump’s desk for signature. He wanted it before the 4th of July and he got his wish. The vote was 218-214 with two Republicans, Tom Massie (R-KY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), joining all the Democrats in voting against the bill.
Sec. 70436 of the bill removed the transfer and making taxes on silencers, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and any other weapons. The $200 tax is retained for machineguns and other destructive devices. The effective date will be the beginning of calendar quarters 90 days or more after the enactment of the bill. If I am calculating that correctly, then the tax goes to zero on January 1, 2026 given we have already started the 3rd quarter of 2025.
Once President Trump signs the bill then the real fun begins. The NRA, the American Suppressor Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation issued a joint statement today stating their intention to sue.
“The NFA is nothing more than a tax scheme which has imposed an unconstitutional burden on Americans since 1934,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The registration of these items was only justified as the means to ensure taxes on them had been paid. With the One Big, Beautiful Bill zeroing out the tax for silencers and short barreled firearms, the registration scheme serves no other purpose than to create an unlawful barrier to keep people from exercising their Second Amendment rights. Our intention with this new lawsuit is to completely remove these barriers.”
“NRA worked throughout the reconciliation process on Capitol Hill to protect and strengthen the right to keep and bear arms,” said NRA President Bill Bachenberg. “Elections have consequences, and thanks to pro-gun majorities in both the House and Senate, American gun owners are seeing real results. A new era has begun in Washington, D.C., and the NRA is deeply grateful for President Trump’s unwavering support for our constitutional freedoms.”
“Congress has delivered a game-changing victory for gun owners – reducing the cost of a tax stamp for suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and ‘any other weapons’ to $0,” said Doug Hamlin, NRA Executive Vice President & CEO. “I thank the many NRA members and gun owners who contacted their Senators and Representatives urging them to protect Second Amendment rights. NRA looks forward to President Trump signing the One, Big, Beautiful Bill into law and building on his legacy as a champion for law-abiding gun owners.”
“Congressional Republicans took action to eliminate a nearly century-old punitive tax designed to discourage the lawful purchase and possession of constitutionally protected arms,” said John Commerford, Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). “NRA-ILA applauds the leadership in both chambers for getting the One, Big, Beautiful Bill to President Trump’s desk. While removing the tax is a significant step forward, it is only the beginning. We remain committed to our ultimate goal: ending the unconstitutional National Firearms Act.”
Sturm, Ruger just announced that they were buying Hebron, Kentucky based Anderson Manufacturing. As I read their press release below, it appears that while they will discontinue the Anderson brand and the associated products Ruger will use the plant and its employees to expand their manufacturing base.
Neither party has released the terms of the agreement or the amount of monies involved in the purchase.
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is pleased to announce the asset purchase of Anderson Manufacturing, a manufacturer of firearms and firearm accessories based in Hebron, Kentucky. This strategic purchase includes Anderson’s manufacturing facility and machinery and will provide Ruger the opportunity to work with a skilled and experienced workforce, strengthening its production capabilities and expanding its product offerings.
Located in a firearms-friendly region, the facility brings valuable expertise in the production of both firearms and aftermarket parts and accessories – areas that complement and enhance Ruger’s existing offerings.
“This acquisition is an incredible opportunity to advance our long-term strategy and expand Ruger’s capacity,” said Todd Seyfert, President and CEO of Ruger. “We’re excited to welcome members from the talented team at Anderson Manufacturing and leverage their knowledge and infrastructure to better serve our customers. This move reinforces Ruger’s position as a leader in the industry, and reiterates my focus on continued growth, even as others scale back.”
Ruger will not continue the Anderson Manufacturing brand or its firearms products. Instead, the Company will integrate the facility’s capabilities into its broader operations, with a focus on launching new products, expanding Ruger’s popular product lines and growing its established accessories business.
Customers, distributors, and partners can continue to expect the high standards of quality, reliability and service that define the Ruger brand. This acquisition underscores Ruger’s commitment to American manufacturing and its mission to deliver innovative, reliable products to the firearms community.
July 1st is Canada Day. Personally, I prefer its older name of Dominion Day which was only changed in 1982 to the newer Canada Day. The day is meant to commemorate the confederation of Canada that occurred on July 1, 1867. That was when the Province of Canada (Upper and Lower Canada), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick formed a confederation. Other provinces such as Manitoba and Prince Edward Island joined in later years.
There are many things I love about Canada. This includes its natural beauty and most of its people. Indeed, my first girlfriend, Pat, was a Canadian who I met at a camp put on by the National Wildlife Federation. She was from the Niagara Escarpment area of Ontario.
Despite President Trump’s desire to see them as the 51st state, real or not, I am not much in favor of a union of the two countries. That said, I would agree to make Alberta the 51st state if they were to secede as they are more conservative, have great hunting and fishing, and, of course, oil. As to the rest, no.
Could you imagine trying to integrate the Quebecois? That is, a bunch of grumpy, never satisfied, Canadians (or Canadiens as they would demand you spell it) who speak an antique version of French.
Non!
I think I shall celebrate Canada Day by either watching John Candy’s Canadian Bacon or re-runs of The Red Green Show.
Now that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has kowtowed to the Left’s Deep State Operative aka the Senate Parliamentarian on needed reform to the National Firearms Act, it is time for Plan B.
According to a text I received this morning from John Commerford, Executive Director of the NRA-ILA, the tax on silencers, short barreled rifles and shotguns, and any other weapons has been lowered to zero dollars in the text of the bill. Additionally, they will be exempted from the excise taxes of the Pittman-Robertson Act. However, all of these items will still be subject to all the laws and regulations of the National Firearms Act including registration. This also means you have to ask ATF for a “mother, may I” permission slip to cross state lines even temporarily with your short barreled rifle or shotgun. Silencers and AOWs are exempt from that requirement.
As my friend Miggy Gonzalez said on Facebook, “We were hoping for a free steak dinner, but we are getting a side of large fries for a Happy Meal instead.”
A coalition of the groups fighting for NFA reform which included the NRA, the American Suppressor Association, GOA, SAF, FPC, and others released this statement yesterday.
The bottom line is ain’t nobody that happy on our side of the fence while the other side is enjoying the fact that their Deep State Operative came through for them. That, and as Diamondback notes, John Thune is a “Temu knockoff of Mitch McConnell.” You would think that with how Elizabeth McDonough just dissed the entire GOP majority of the Senate Finance Committee that the Republicans might show more spine and less squishiness. A guy can dream, right?
Harold Lasswell was one of the icons of political science of the 20th century. Not content to be one of the founding fathers of political psychology and policy sciences, he was one of the earliest to recognize that mass communications was worthy of scholarly study. Long before modern political science devolved into trendy genres like feminist theory, queer theory, and fill in the blank theory, Lasswell was studying propaganda and had invented content analysis to search for patterns within it.
Lasswell wrote over 30 books and somewhere near 250 scholarly journal articles. This is a massive output by any measure. That said, the one book that always caught my attention was an early work entitled, Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How. (#commission earned). This is because I have always had a Lasswellian view of politics at its most basic. It is about the fight by both the elites and the masses to see who gets the spoils along with the countervailing fight by their opponents to keep the spoils for themselves. You can gloss up politics with all sorts of theories but it always comes back to power and the spoils that come with it.
This morning we learned of the infuriating ruling by the Senate Parliamentarian, an appointed and not elected official, that the inclusion of parts of the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act violated the so-called Byrd Rule. This was notwithstanding that the US argued that the National Firearms Act did not violate the Second Amendment because it was a “revenue measure” in US v Miller. The Parliamentarian, Elizabeth McDonough, argued the NFA was a regulation and not a tax which is utter bovine manure.
I see Thune as acting like Kevin Bacon’s character in the movie Animal House. What Thune seems to forget that he would not even be Senate Majority Leader if gun owners had not provided the margin of victory in key Senate races in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Montana.
The question is what to do now as well as what not to do. Gun owners should not do is be like Oliver asking for more. It is time we stop groveling!
The first thing we should be doing is calling our US Senators and letting them have it for kowtowing to the parliamentarian appointed by none other than Harry Reid. Call 202-224-3121 and ask for the offices of your two senators. Keep the pressure up and let them know that merely stripping the NFA reform provisions out of the Big Beautiful Bill is not going to cut it. Here is the list of those up for reelection in 2026. They should be the first targets of your call.
Here are the options as I and others see them:
Do nothing – definitely possible given the Senate
Fire Elizabeth McDonough – probably not going to happen
Have J. D. Vance overrule McDonough as President of the Senate – possible
Leave the regulatory aspects of the NFA in place and lower the tax to zero or $1 – wimpy but likely
Rewrite the provisions to try and get past the parliamentarian – maybe
Set the tax at $1 and preempt all the state’s that ban NFA items – suggested by Kostas Moros
Stephen Gutowski of The Reload thinks that McDonough will neither be fired nor overruled. His argument is that doing so may endanger the sacred tradition of the fillibuster.
While the Majority Leader can fire the parliamentarian or the Vice President can overrule their decisions, there are good reasons that’s happened so rarely. It all has to do with the filibuster. Since reconciliation is a special Senate process designed to allow budget bills to avoid the 60-vote filibuster threshold–but only budget bills. So, the process is designed to root out anything that doesn’t primarily have a budget impact.
In other words, the process is designed to protect the legislative filibuster.
He very well may be correct. Stephen goes on to add that if McDonough is overruled or fired by the Republicans it will be due to other items stripped out of the bill and not the NFA items. In other words, no matter how important these items are to the gun community – and they are – they just don’t seem that important to the Republican senators.
That is a perception that needs to be changed. The time for going before Congress on bended knee is over. Every 2A organization from the NRA to state level groups needs to mobilize their members to say hell no. As I said in the beginning referring to Harold Laswell, politics is who gets what, when, and how.
Trainer, podcaster, social media influencer, and IT professional Rob Beckman is running for the NRA Board of Directors by petition. I fully support Rob and consider him just the sort of well-qualified reformer that we need on the Board.
If you are a Life Member or a 5-year continuous Annual Member, I would urge you to sign Rob’s petition.
During my run for the Board, Rob interviewed me on his Firearm Trainer’s Podcast. He stood solidly on the side of reform and electing reformers. He is a strong believer in using education and training as way to both get back to the NRA’s roots and to rebuild our membership. Further, he believes as I do in effective and proper governance is the way to restore the faith of the members in the NRA.
If you look at Rob’s LinkedIn profile and biography here are some things that jump out at me.
Business experience – Senior Project Manager for a global industrial company
Non-profit experience – currently VP & Hunting Director of Ohio Rifle and Pistol Association and former Board of Directors of Dan Beard Council, Scouting USA
NRA Training Counselor
Social Media experience – Firearm Trainer’s Podcast
Hunter – Not only hunts but is a hunting safety instructor
This is the type of person we need on the Board of Directors and I would urge you to sign his petition.
I can tell you from personal experience that Doug listens to both the members and the Board of Director. Contrast that with Wayne LaPierre who only listened to his personal clique and treated the rest of the Board like vassals seeking the king’s blessings.
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