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Posted on 11/10/2023 9:33:59 AM PST by Red Badger
(The Epoch Times)—Restrictions imposed by President Joe Biden’s administration on so-called ghost guns are illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Nov. 9.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), an Executive Branch agency that promulgated the rule containing the restrictions in 2022 with President Biden’s support, overstepped its authority, according to a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
“The agency rule at issue here flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively-imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote in the ruling. “Because Congress has neither authorized the expansion of firearm regulation nor permitted the criminalization of previously lawful conduct, the proposed rule constitutes unlawful agency action, in direct contravention of the legislature’s will.”
The ATF declined to comment. The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to queries.
The regulation required that sellers of kits that could be made into guns run background checks before selling them.
It also implemented requirements for putting serial numbers on kits and placing the numbers on already-erected “ghost guns.”
So-called ghost guns refer to guns that can be made in private from kits, lacking serial numbers. Critics say the guns pose a problem because they cannot be traced.
“Buyers aren’t required to pass background checks. Because guns have no serial numbers—these guns—when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced,” President Biden said when announcing the new rule. “Harder to find and prove who used them. Meaning you can’t connect the gun to the shooter and hold them accountable.”
Gun owners and groups said shortly after the restrictions went into effect that they were illegal because the Executive Branch does not have the authority to impose new regulations without approval by Congress.
“Congress also did not give the Agencies the authority to regulate the broad array of materials that may, at some point in the future, be manufactured into firearms by private individual,” the suit stated.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled twice in favor of plaintiffs, finding that the ATF changed the definition of, among other terms, “frame or receiver” as outlined in the Gun Control Act of 1968 from its longstanding interpretation.
The changed definition enabled authorities to regulate parts that had not yet become guns, which strayed from the careful definitions in the law, Judge O’Connor said. The ATF’s redefinition, he said, “conflicts with the statute’s plain meaning.”
Starting in 1978, the ATF defined a “frame or receiver” as “That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.”
The redefinition held that the terms “shall include a partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frame or receiver, including a frame or receiver parts kit, that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver, i.e., to house or provide a structure for the primary energized component of a handgun, breech blocking or sealing component of a projectile weapon other than a handgun.”
Congress did not include a definition for “frame or receiver,” meaning the words retain their common meaning, and that the ATF “cannot add … language where Congress did not intend it to exist,” Judge Engelhardt said in the new ruling.
“There is also a clear logical flaw in ATF’s proposal. As written, the final rule states that the phrase ‘frame or receiver’ includes things that are admittedly not yet frames or receivers but that can easily become frames or receivers—in other words: parts,” he added. “Such a proposition defies logic: ‘a part cannot be both not yet a receiver and a receiver at the same time.'”
In a concurring opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham said that the new restrictions replaced “a clear, brightline rule with a vague, indeterminate, multi-factor balancing test,” which resulted in a “new uncertainty” that “will act like a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of American gun owners.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett joined with his colleagues, making the ruling unanimous.
“We are elated with this unanimous court ruling,” Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which is one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “The ATF clearly exceeded its authority. This is a major victory for gun owners and the rule of law.”
All three judges were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Judge O’Connor was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
The case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices have twice in recent months stayed orders blocking the rule as the litigation continues.
Ping!
these guns—when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced,”
= = =
And if they can be ‘traced’, just what good does that do?
If we trace it back far enough, the guy he shot will come back to life?
Biden and the Dems are always belly-aching about law-abiding Americans having guns,
yet they are hell bent on arming foreign countries to the hilt (using gun owners’ tax dollars).
I’m convinced the Feds keep records on every gun sold via FFL and the identity of the purchaser. They don’t like ghost guns because they can’t keep track of the innocent people who own them.
Anything that defangs the abominable ATF and its loopy director is a good thing. Now they’ll have to shelve their plans for another Waco until another time.
Many states allow person-to-person gun sales for state residents without going through an FFL. The first time a gun is sold that way and the serial number is useless for tracking purposes.
Instead of tracking the innocent civilians, the feds should godown in the hood and start sweeping up guns from the hoodlums.
Depends. When I do a person to person sale I generally require a receipt that contains the names of the parties, serial #, and date of sale. If I buy a gun and find out it was previously used in a crime I want to be able to document when I got it. Same thing if I sell a gun and it is subsequently used in a crime. But the government doesn’t know about the receipt unless for some reason things come back to me somehow.
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Nobody is innocent in the eyes of the state.
“Critics say the guns pose a problem because they cannot be traced.”
How many cases are solved by guns dropped at crime scenes by their serial numbers??? I would guess none. Call me skeptical but I have a suspicion serial numbers are only there to register and track gun owners.
Every gun used in Chicago to kill someone for like forever has had serial numbers.
How many have been caught?........................
A case name or link to the ruling itself would be helpful.
Does this ruling affect the similar state law imposed by Connecticut?
Separate case..................
Do you think any of them will show up at "crime scenes"?
"Because Congress has neither authorized the expansion of (INSERT SELECTED TOPIC) regulation nor permitted the criminalization of previously lawful conduct, the proposed rule constitutes unlawful agency action, in direct contravention of the legislature’s will."
...and overturn about 90% of the administrative rules out there.
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