Texas Judge Issues Temporarily Restraining Order Against DOJ Rule Expanding Gun Background Checks

Texas Judge Issues Temporarily Restraining Order Against DOJ Rule Expanding Gun Background Checks

United States District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas has temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s expansion of gun background checks in Texas. The ruling also applies to gun rights groups, including Gun Owners of America.

“Yet Defendants maintain their interpretation despite knowing that ‘two-thirds of Americans report owning firearms primarily for “defense” or “protection”‘ — thereby necessitating the absurdity that the statute’s safe harbor provision provides no safe harbor at all for the majority,” said Kacsmaryk.

However, Kacsmaryk said Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah failed to meet the standards to receive the temporary restraining order.

To gain the temporary restraining order, plaintiffs must show:

• (1) a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits;
• (2) a substantial threat of irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted;
• (3) the threatened injury outweighs any harm that will result to the non-movant if the injunction is granted; and
• (4) the injunction will not disserve the public interest

In April, the ATF announced a Final Rule to “redefine when someone is ‘engaged in business’ as a gun dealer subject to background check regulations, using new authorities granted by a bipartisan gun control law passed by Congress following a deadly school shooting at Uvalde, Texas in 2022.”

The plaintiffs argued the Final Rule:

• (1) arbitrary and capricious;
• (2) in excess of ATF’s lawful authority;
• (3) an abuse of ATF’s discretion;
• (4) in contravention of the BSCA [Bipartisan Safer Communities Act]; and
• (5) violative of the Second and Fourth Amendments

Kacsmaryk agreed that Texas showed the Final Rule would prohibit eligible people from gaining a Federal Firearms License (FFL), leading to fewer sales at gun shows.

Texas has a sales tax on guns purchased at gun shows, which means Texas would also face a financial loss.

Jeffrey Tormey, one of the plaintiffs, showed that the Final Rule would “be enforced against him” as he has participated in many gun shows where he “bought, sold, and traded firearms.” Kacsmaryk sided with Tormey because the defendants did not deny that enforcing the Final Rule against Tormey “would result in irreparable injury.”

The organizations in the lawsuit argued against the Final Rule’s requirement to “identify-by-name” members of the organizations to have associational standing. The defendants cited Summers v. Earth Island Institute, but Kacsmaryk reminded them that “Summers did not consider impermissible reliance on anonymous or pseudonymous declarations to establish standing.”

“Rather, it considered the plaintiffs’ failure ‘to allege that any particular…sale or other project claimed to be unlawfully subject to the regulations [would] impede a specific and concrete plan’ of the plaintiffs, wrote Kacsmaryk. “Nor has the Supreme Court adopted a ‘naming requirement’ — such as the one proposed by Defendants — in the wake of Summers.”

Kacsmaryk found that the Final Rule clashed with the BCSA, disagreeing with the defendants’ interpretation of the act’s words, especially regarding “personal collection.”

The judge noted that the nothing in the text of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21)(C) “suggests that the term ‘personal collection’ does not include firearms accumulated primarily for personal protection” even though “that is exactly what the Final Rule asserts.”

Kacsmaryk also found problems with the defendants’ presumptions concerning a person’s intent to earn a profit and someone engaged in business.

Kacsmaryk added:

Moreover, “[t]here is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.” State v. Biden, 10 F.4th 538, 560 (5th Cir. 2021). And as this Court’s analysis makes clear, Defendants’ Final Rule is almost certainly violative of — at the least — the APA. As such, “both the balance of equities and the public interest weigh in favor of allowing orderly judicial review of the Rule before anyone shuts down their businesses or sends them to jail.” VanDerStok v. Garland, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 26499, at *6 (5th Cir. Oct. 2, 2023).

Texas is thrilled the judge issued the order, which lasts until June 2.

🚨BREAKING: We Just Secured A Temporary Restraining Order Against Biden Administration, Stopping Unlawful ATF Rule from Taking Effect: I am relieved that we were able to secure a restraining order that will prevent this illegal rule from taking effect. The Biden Administration… https://t.co/h8by98RVb2

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) May 20, 2024

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