Reaffirmation of Miller: Constitutional Upholding of NFA’s Regulation of Short-Barreled Firearms Under the Second Amendment

Introduction

United States v. David Robinson, Jr., decided March 20, 2025, by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, addresses the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act’s (NFA) registration requirement for short-barreled rifles. Defendant-Appellant David Robinson, Jr. was indicted in the Middle District of Florida for possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5861(d) and 5871. Robinson challenged his indictment on three constitutional grounds: (1) that the NFA infringes the Second Amendment in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022); (2) that the NFA exceeds Congress’s taxing power and thus violates the Tenth Amendment; and (3) that the NFA’s transfer and registration fees amount to an unconstitutional tax or fee on the exercise of a constitutional right. The district court denied those challenges, held a bench trial, found Robinson guilty, and imposed probation with home confinement. Robinson appeals his conviction, renewing each constitutional attack.

Summary of the Judgment

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Applying de novo review, the court concluded that:

Under the binding precedent of United States v. Miller (1939), the NFA’s prohibition on possession of unregistered short-barreled rifles does not violate the Second Amendment. The court emphasized that neither Heller (2008) nor Bruen (2022) has overruled or limited Miller, and that our circuit decisions in Tagg, Bolatete, and Wilson continue to uphold Miller’s reasoning.
Short-barreled rifles are no different, for Second Amendment purposes, from short-barreled shotguns: both are specialized, concealable weapons regulated by Congress under the NFA. Robinson failed to show a meaningful historical distinction that would render rifles exempt.
The NFA does not impose an unconstitutional “tax” on the exercise of a constitutional right. Bruen’s historical-tradition standard governs Second Amendment challenges, displacing any fee-jurisprudence (means-end scrutiny) approach derived from First Amendment cases such as Murdock and Cox.
The NFA’s transfer-tax mechanism and registration requirement do not exceed Congress’s power under the Tenth Amendment, as held in Bolatete.

Absent any binding Supreme Court decision overruling Miller or our circuit precedents, the panel affirmed the conviction.

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited

The court’s analysis turns on a hierarchy of binding precedent:

United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) – Held that “the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear” only those weapons having a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” A short-barreled shotgun (and, by extension, rifle) lacks such a relationship absent historical evidence.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) – Recognized an individual right to possess arms for self-defense unconnected with militia service, but reaffirmed Miller as an “important limitation” on that right.
United States v. Tagg, 572 F.3d 1320 (11th Cir. 2009) – Applied Miller post-Heller to uphold NFA convictions for unregistered destructive devices.
United States v. Bolatete, 977 F.3d 1022 (11th Cir. 2020) – Rejected Tenth Amendment and “unconstitutional tax” challenges to the NFA, holding the NFA’s transfer tax is a valid exercise of Congress’s power.
United States v. Wilson, 979 F.3d 889 (11th Cir. 2020) – Reiterated Miller’s holding on short-barreled shotguns and approved NFA under the taxing clause.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) – Rejected means-end scrutiny for Second Amendment claims and adopted a two-step historical-tradition test: (1) Does the Second Amendment’s text cover the conduct? (2) If so, is the regulation consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation?
United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024) – Confirmed Bruen’s methodology, held § 922(g)(8) constitutional under historical-tradition analysis, and clarified that rights-regulating statutes need not be “dead ringers” for colonial-era laws but must comport with founding principles.

2. Legal Reasoning

a. Supreme Court Precedent Constraint
The Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed that it must follow directly on-point Supreme Court precedent, even if the reasoning appears outdated. Only the Supreme Court can overrule its own decisions. Neither Heller nor Bruen explicitly overturned Miller, and Bruen did not even cite Miller as eroded. Consequently, Miller governs the constitutionality of NFA’s regulation of short-barreled firearms.

b. Prior Panel Precedent Rule
Under United States v. White and related cases, Eleventh Circuit panels are bound by prior Eleventh Circuit decisions—here, Tagg, Bolatete, and Wilson—until this court sits en banc or the Supreme Court clearly overrules them. Robinson’s attempt to distinguish rifles from shotguns failed because no controlling decision draws that line.

c. Application of Bruen
Bruen’s historical-tradition test applies to new Second Amendment challenges but does not override Miller’s core holding. Even under Bruen, the NFA’s prohibition on unregistered short-barreled rifles is presumptively lawful, because both the text and longstanding federal regulation show a tradition of outlawing or strictly regulating such concealable, military-style weapons.

d. Taxing and Tenth Amendment Power
The NFA’s transfer tax and registration requirement fall squarely within Congress’s Article I taxing power. Ross (1972) and Bolatete held that Congress may condition transfers of regulated items on registration and tax payment. The Tenth Amendment does not reserve to the States any power to invalidate federal taxes or enforce them.

e. Fee Jurisprudence versus Bruen
First Amendment fee-jurisprudence (Cox, Murdock) employs means-end scrutiny to strike fees that bear no relation to administrative cost. Bruen expressly rejected means-end scrutiny for the Second Amendment, mandating a historical approach instead. Thus, the Eleventh Circuit refused to import First Amendment fee cases into the Second Amendment realm.

3. Impact on Future Cases and the Area of Law

Enduring Miller Authority: Lower courts will continue to apply Miller to any challenge against NFA-regulated weapons, including short-barreled rifles, shotguns, silencers, and destructive devices.
Bruen’s Scope Confirmed: Courts will apply Bruen’s historical approach only to new or novel regulations (e.g., licensing regimes, carry restrictions), not to existing federal statutes rooted in over eight decades of uniform application.
No Means-End Scrutiny: Efforts to challenge gun-control statutes on the basis of First Amendment fee principles are foreclosed; challengers must marshal founding-era analogues rather than argue proportionality or balancing tests.
Deference to Legislative Judgment: By upholding Congress’s choice to regulate concealable military-style arms, courts signal deference to the legislative judgment that certain weapons warrant special controls.
Clarification of Tenth Amendment Limits: The decision underscores that federal gun-control statutes enacted under the taxing power are not subject to revival of pre-New Deal Tenth Amendment doctrines.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Second Amendment Text and Scope: “Keep and bear Arms” protects an individual right but is limited to weapons “in common use” for lawful purposes. Weapons that lack a historical tie to militia or self-defense—like short barrels—may be regulated.

Miller’s Militia-Connection Test: Under Miller, a weapon is protected only if it “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Short barrels fail that test.

Bruen’s Historical-Tradition Framework: Courts must ask (1) whether the regulated conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text, then (2) whether the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Means-End Scrutiny vs. Historical Analysis: Means-end scrutiny (balancing) evaluates whether a law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Bruen prohibits that approach for Second Amendment claims; First Amendment “fee jurisprudence” is an example of means-end scrutiny.

De Novo Review: When a statute’s constitutionality is at issue, appellate courts reexamine the legal question from scratch, giving no deference to the district court’s legal conclusions.

Tenth Amendment and Taxing Power: The Tenth Amendment reserves undelegated powers to the States but does not limit Congress’s explicit grants of power—like the taxing power used in the NFA. If Congress validly taxes firearms transfers, the tax stands absent a clear constitutional violation.

Conclusion

United States v. Robinson reaffirms and consolidates three pillars of federal firearms jurisprudence: (1) Miller remains the keystone holding that short-barreled military-style weapons fall outside the Second Amendment’s core protection; (2) Bruen’s historical-tradition standard governs new challenges but does not overrule longstanding NFA applications; and (3) the NFA’s taxing and registration scheme is a valid exercise of Congress’s power and not an unconstitutional fee or tax on constitutional rights. By upholding Robinson’s conviction, the Eleventh Circuit sends a clear signal that lower courts must continue to defer to nearly a century of unified federal regulation of short-barreled firearms and that challengers must point to clear historical analogues rather than argue balancing tests. This decision cements the NFA’s status as a constitutional bulwark against unregistered possession of specialized weapons and guides future Second Amendment litigation toward founded historical inquiry rather than proportionality analysis.