NEW ORLEANS — A recent decision out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on silencers bodes well for gun owners, putting the subject of their constitutional protection further into the spotlight and perhaps on a trajectory towards the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, June 18, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an 11-page decision in United States v. Comeaux in which it addressed a lingering question by a previous Fifth Circuit panel, with the court affirming for the public record its position on silencers (or firearms suppressors):
Peterson left open the question whether silencers are Second Amendment “Arms.” They are.
The significance of this ruling is noteworthy in that it not only affirms constitutional protection under the Second Amendment for these widely used accessories (to the tune of 6,000,000+ registered suppressors), but also breaks with decisions by other circuits, a scenario hoped for by the gun community because it invites Supreme Court scrutiny.
“This is of massive importance considering that other circuits have ruled the opposite, and it puts further pressure on the Supreme Court to grant a hardware case immediately,” said the Second Amendment Foundation, in a post on X.
Kostas Moros, director of legal research and education at SAF, connected the relevance of this decision to those who live in restricted, blue states, writing, “This is of critical importance to those of us in states that totally ban them. While everyone else is arguing about whether registration is constitutional, we can’t even register them under the NFA if we wanted to!”
In its decision, the three-judge panel, which included Circuit Judges Smith, Duncan, and Clement, concluded that suppressors are “arms” by documenting and affirming what every firearms owner intuitively recognizes:
Silencers lead to “reduced loudness (and reduced risk of hearing loss), lower recoil from the firearm, elimination of muzzle blast, increased accuracy, and faster follow-up shots.” Those are all critical functions that make firearms both safer and more effective for their core lawful purpose of self-defense. Because silencers are used in self-defense “to cast at or strike another,” they are Second Amendment “Arms.”
And in case anybody might misconstrue the court’s opinion to read otherwise, they summarize their decision, writing, “Silencers are ‘Arms.'”
Also challenged in this case was the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act – a challenge the court says failed because the defendant was unable to show it was “being put ‘toward abusive ends.'” It stated that the binding precedent in this situation is the Peterson case, decided by the same circuit in December of 2025, which upheld the NFA, stating that a “shall-issue licensing regime is presumptively constitutional under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen…”
That position is a decidedly incorrect interpretation of Bruen, according to most Second Amendment legal experts, and one which the gun community hopes the court lays to rest when it next hears a major 2A case.
The Supreme Court recently issued its second 2A-related decision of the term, in which it ruled unanimously on the issue of gun ownership and use of controlled substances.
