Once again, concerted efforts by gun rights organizations stood in the way of federal government overreach. Unfortunately, it is now increasingly common for federal bureaucrats to attempt to implement de facto laws that the legislature has not passed.
This was the case with the feeble effort to define pieces of a weapon as fully a weapon. The ATF pushed to classify “partially complete pistol frames” as actual firearms.
The result of this, if left to stand, would be requiring background checks for hobbyists who purchase certain gun parts kits. The federal government would claim these parts are weapons and demand they be treated as such.
The Fifth Circuit did not buy this argument against so-called “ghost guns.”
“Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, or irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. [V]acatur reestablish[es] the status quo ante…which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.”
Earlier this month, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled against the ATF. The successful suit was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and others.
Needless to say, the Second Amendment advocacy groups behind this successful legal challenge are ecstatic.
The FPC celebrated the victory with a statement.
“Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation (FPCAF) announced that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the federal government’s attempt to completely stay the district court’s decision in VanDerStok v. Garland, which vacated ATF’s unlawful “frame or receiver” rule. This decision, which the Fifth Circuit stayed for 10 days, prevents ATF from enforcing the rule’s “regulatory definitions of ‘frame or receiver’ and ‘firearm’ as applied to the Gun Control Act of 1968.”
Cody J. Wisniewski, the FPC counsel in VanDerStok v. Garland, declared the organization is “elated” that the Fifth Circuit rejected arguments from the ATF. The court also decided that further appeal will likely be unsuccessful.
In the original district court ruling upheld by the Fifth Circuit, Judge O’Connor took the ATF to task for assuming authority that is constitutionally reserved for Congress.
It is not, he wrote, up to a federal agency to decide definitions within the law. “Because Congress did not define ‘frame or receiver,’ the words receive their ordinary meaning.”
O’Connor flatly declared that “weapons parts are not weapons” before vacating the ATF rule.
Gun parts are no more a complete gun than tires are an automobile. The ATF embarked on this mission to classify them as such in the same way that a solution searches for a problem. It is yet another move merely to satisfy the desires of anti-gun political leaders who want to do “something” to send home to their constituents.
It is indeed possible that someday the barrel or trigger of a firearm will be legally defined as a complete weapon. However, that is a definition for Congress to determine, not unelected officials.
Until that day, the ATF would be far better served by fulfilling its legitimate mission of enforcing laws, not creating new ones.
