Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety responded to the ATF’s new guidelines for suppressor sales by calling ATF Director Robert Cekada a gun industry “puppet.”

Breitbart News spoke with Director Cekada Friday before the new guidelines were released and he told us the ATF/DOJ decided to broaden an August 5, 2026, district court ruling against suppressor registration so that it freed all law-abiding Americans from the cumbersome NFA requirements.

In the ruling, handed down in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF,  U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge James Wesley Hendrix found registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns “unconstitutional” and said the requirements could not be enforced against plaintiffs. Cekada announced Friday that the ATF/DOJ was applying the ruling to all law-abiding Americans, thereby crushing federal NFA registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles and shotguns.

Everytown was not happy. They responded to Cekada’s announcement with an Instagram post in which they wrote, “The federal agency tasked with enforcing our gun laws is now deciding not to. The National Firearms Act was enacted nearly a century ago to prevent criminals from getting their hands on weapons like short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and silencers.”

They added, “ATF Director Cekada’s decision to be a puppet for the gun industry will only put the safety of our communities at risk.”

In other news, suppressor sales are booming.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].