Supreme Court Upholds ATF Regulations on ‘Ghost Guns’
The regulation “treats unfinished frames and receivers and DIY-gunmaking kids as fully functional firearms.”
The Supreme Court upheld the ATF’s regulations on what people call “ghost guns,” 7-2.
The regulation “treats unfinished frames and receivers and DIY-gunmaking kids as fully functional firearms.”
The decision overturned the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. They held that the refulation “is not facially inconsistent with the GCA [Gun Control Act].”
As Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms points out, the plaintiffs did not focus on the Second Amendment but the Administrative Procedure Act.
The plaintiffs “filed what they described as a facial challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that the GCA cannot be read to reach weapon parts kits or unfinished frames or receivers.”
IMPORTANT: A facial challenge means the plaintiffs claim “that a statute is unconstitutional at all times and under all circumstances.”
The Fifth Circuit vacated the rule, finding “that §921(a)(3)(A) categorically does not reach weapon parts kits regardless of completeness or ease of assembly, and that §921(a)(3)(B) reaches only finished frames and receivers.”
The majority of SCOTUS ruled the following are not facially invalid:
- Section 478.11’s provisions addressing weapon parts kits are not facially invalid under §921(a)(3)(A). That subsection contains two requirements: a “weapon” must be present, and that weapon must be able to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive, designed to do so, or susceptible of ready conversion to operate that way.
- Section 478.12(c)’s treatment of partially complete frames and receivers is also not facially invalid under §921(a)(3)(B). Like “weapon,” the artifact nouns “frame” and “receiver” may describe not yet-complete objects.
This seems to leave an open door to more anti-gun policies to stand.
These are parts. How can you treat parts of a gun as a fully functional weapon?
(I’m about to board a plane. I will add more once I’m in the air!)
Sorry about that!! The airplane’s wifi did not work. It put me back in the stone age!
Edwards always does a great job breaking down anything gun related:
If unfinished frames and receivers can be treated as fully functional firearms because they can be converted into such, what’s stopping the Supreme Court (or lower courts) from adopting the arguments of anti-gunners that semi-automatic firearms should be treated like machine guns because they too can be converted to full-auto?
That result, the plaintiffs warn, could leave many Americans facing new and unforeseen criminal liability for possession of a “machinegun” simply because they own a “popular” and “commonly available” rifle. The plaintiffs’ fears are misplaced. The government represents that AR–15 receivers do not “qualify as the receiver of a machinegun.” Nor, the government emphasizes, has ATF ever “suggested otherwise.” Much the same can be said of our reasoning today. As we have stressed, a statute’s text and context are critical to determining whether (and to what extent) Congress used an artifact noun to reach unfinished objects. And, without doubt, the NFA and the GCA are different statutes passed at different times to address different problems using different language. Our analysis of the GCA thus does not begin to suggest that ATF possesses authority to regulate AR–15 receivers as machineguns under the NFA.
With all due respect to Gorsuch, he and his fellow justices have also stated that the Second Amendment isn’t a second-class right, but that hasn’t stopped lower court judges from treading all over our right to keep and bear arms. Similarly, today’s note of caution about treating semi-automatic firearms as “machineguns” may very well be disregarded by lower courts going forward. That’s one reason why SCOTUS needs to address semi-auto bans and declare them an affront to the Constitution and the Second Amendment.
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Comments
“In the ruling, Gorsuch wrote, “Some home hobbyists enjoy assembling them. But criminals also find them attractive.””
Repeal the GCA of 1968. And abolish the ATF.
The Supreme Court upholds the “felons’ veto” of a constitutional RIGHT.
It’s a sad day in America. It’s time to keep cleaning house.
I hope no one ever tells Gorsuch what felons use their c*cks for.
I need to remind you knuckleheads that it was Trump who appointed Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The two Justices in the dissent, well guess what? They were appointed by the Bushes — you know, the RINO, Uniparty, One World Globalists, anti-Trump, anti-American Presidents. God help us if Trump is ever is allowed to appoint another of his idiots to the Supreme Court. But GO TRUMP! GO MAGA!
I realize you are the guy that said “Trump can’t win”, and then Trump won in a landslide, but you really should keep your narcissistic injuries to yourself. Public self-degradation is bad for your mental health.
Jesus H. Christ, Junior.
Take your “knucklehead” comment and stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
We get it… you’re a card-carrying member of the Democrat party.
But you don’t have to be such a tool about it.
Bush Pere also appointed Souter, so, Thomas’s appointment merely cancels that awful pick out.
If you’d left it at the first or first two sentences, you’d have been fine. But then you had to go and demonstrate your TDS. /sigh/
But it’s no fun to be a Democrat UNLESS you can be a tool about it.
This is a prelude to the most important 2nd amendment questions that should come before the court:
1. Can the AR-15 (the most popular rifle the last few years) be banned?
2. Can standard-capacity clip magazines (11-30 rounds) be banned?
3. Can citizens with no criminal record be forced to get government approval (some kind of permit etc) before they can buy a firearm?
4. Can someone’s firearms be taken away because an angry ex-spouse wants to use that as leverage in a divorce?
Number 4 is already in effect. The wife who now wants a Chad or Tyrone just files DV allegations and the husband’s firearms go in the direction of “bye bye”.
That actually happened to the sheriff in Benton County, Washington. His divorcing wife got him banned from firearms for 21 months.
https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/crime/article253151488.html
Or even a “potential self-harm” Red Flag claim. “Of course he’s going to commit suicide. I’m divorcing him, aren’t I?”
“Some home hobbyists enjoy assembling them. But criminals also find them attractive.”
And that is relevant to their legal possession in exactly what way? Criminals also find cars attractive. And smartphones – especially ones that let you keep your communications secure. And hammers. And screwdrivers and pry bars. And knives, food, air, fresh water, and clothing.
That is the abso9lutely stupidest reason for banning anything that exists, and is a classic Progressive concept of trying to remove the ability to do harm without removing the actor doing harm.
So, when do I have to start serilizing my blocks of unmilled aluminum and having people fill out 4473s for their transfer?
At some point in the last 4 years I bought a 0% lower. I don’t remember which 80% company was selling it, but I bought it because I could. (It was cheap and funny.)
Maybe I should save up my pennies and buy a CNC machine so I can just make lowers all from scratch.
Brandon Herrera did a video on this 3 years ago explaining the concept of ghost guns, and how stupid the legislation was.
https://youtu.be/1L8wHOm0xug?si=ZH-4aQlIesm3JvIp
This is a dumbass decision. Since we seem to be applying the ‘but some unspecified person might misuse it in the future so we must forestall it’ standard… is SCOTUS gonna apply it across the board? Nah, we know they only want to apply it v 2A.
They are the establishment. They fear an armed people, with good reason.
Just a variation on the old “if it saves JUST ONE LIFE,.,” for a lot of the asinine junk we are stuck with in present day automobiles.
The decision isn’t based on any “but some unspecified person might misuse it in the future so we must forestall it” standard. It’s got nothing to do with that. That sort of thing is for Congress to decide, not for the courts. The only question before the court was whether the ATF’s interpretation of the law is reasonable. Can the law that Congress made be understood the way the ATF wants us to understand it. And the majority decided that yes, it can be. That doesn’t mean it’s a good or a wise policy.
Patel’s ATF should change the policy. This may be a reasonable way of reading the law, but so was the way the ATF read it for 50+ years. So he can just decree that the ATF is now going back to that reading. And Congress should amend the act to clarify which reading it actually intends.
The decision isn’t based on any “but some unspecified person might misuse it in the future so we must forestall it” standard.
Really, Millhouse? Did you read this part?
That sure looks like exactly that kind of reasoning. Maybe it wasn’t the whole of the reasoning, but it was certainly there. And most of the gun control (and other weapon control) legislation around the country is based entirely on that concept. It’s why brass knuckles and switchblades are banned. It’s also why certain tools (jimmies and lock pick tools) were banned many places for a long time – because “only” criminals would use them, and anyone else who might use them legitimately can get a license.
Yes, I did read that. That was not a policy argument. It was an explanation for why Congress might have wanted to ban them. Yes, harmless hobbyists like them, but so do some criminals, so when the words Congress enacted can be read to authorize banning them, it’s reasonable to read them that way.
Whether Congress could authorize such a ban wasn’t at issue. Whether it should is never legitimately at issue. The only question before the court was whether it had.
I would submit that any attempt to equate mere parts which by themselves are not capable of functioning as a completed, fully functional firearm to a fully assembled, fully functional firearm is a very unreasonable position totally at odds with reality. That’s what the ATF sought and what the CT allowed. They did so, in part, as noted in the majority opinion due to concerns that ‘criminals like them too’. Criminals like all sorts of other lawful products as well for instance they wear clothing, use a belt, have a getaway vehicle, Other than the occasional ‘Florida Man’ episode criminals don’t show up naked so we gonna seek to ban ordering fabric, needles, thread to sew up some clothes to.wear to the robbery? Gonna ban ordering auto parts b/c they might be used to facilitate a crime?
Where does this requirement for a “fully assembled, fully functional firearm” come from? It’s not in the act. The act merely says “firearm”. It says nothing about how assembled it is, or how functional. For 50+ years the ATF took the position that unless it’s fully assembled and functional it’s not a “firearm” within the meaning of the act. Then it changed its mind. What, other than policy preference, makes you think the earlier reading was correct and the later reading not?
No, they didn’t. They allowed the ATF to read the act that way because they found it to be a plausible reading. When Congress passed the act it may have actually meant the term to include unassembled firearms; so a reasonable person reading the act at the time might easily have understood it that way.
Whether Congress should have made such a law is not any court’s business. Whether it could make such a law is the court’s business, but that question wasn’t before it, so it couldn’t address it. The only question before the court was what did it do, i.e. what would a reasonable person have understood it to have done.
“…DIY-gunmaking kids as fully functional firearms.””
The ATF is regulating children?
Gives a whole new meaning to saying that kid is a little pistol.
Your comment is more humorous than the one I wrote below.
Schrodinger’s Gun: every piece part of a gun is simultaneously a firearm and merely a firearm accessory, whichever allows the government maximum violation of the Second Amendment.
Just like taxing / fining citizens who didn’t purchase O-mandated health insurance is is both a tax and/or a fine – depending on the day of the week and which one makes it less unconstitutional.
It’s the New Shimmer of firearm laws…..
https://www.tiktok.com/@user2571420815968/video/7205011129590926634?lang=en
That is an outright lie about what the decision said It definitively found that the money squarely fit the definition of a tax, and was not in any way a fine, There was no suggestion that it had ever been a fine, or that it could ever be one.
Milhouse, you’re being obtuse again.
OC the DECISION never suggested it “ever had been a fine”, the decision is the conclusion of the court arguments, not the totality.
The avg person can, IWT, be excused for thinking that a financial penalty the govt imposes for failing to take an action IS on the face of it a “fine”, and that a tax commonly is a tax on a financial transaction, not on a lack of a financial transaction.
You have taxes on income, on sales, on owned real estate, on professional services, not on failing to comply to a govt mandate.
If I fail in NYS to purchase auto insurance for a registered and plated vehicle, either purposefully or accidentally, folks here straight up call the penalty imposed for that a fine, not a tax. It’s a fine-ancial penalty.
Clearly you have never read the decision.
Roberts carefully and thoroughly listed the differences between a tax and a penalty, and showed how this fee bore all the hallmarks of a tax and none of a penalty.
The only reason anyone ever thought otherwise was because the president and the congress called a penalty, and swore up and down that it wasn’t a tax. Well, said the court, we don’t give a damn what politicians want to call things. We look only at what they are, not what politicians say they are. And this looks nothing like a penalty and completely like a tax, so we’re going to call it as we see it.
Roberts basically called the Democrats liars, because they are.
And this proves you never read the decision, or even anything that reported what the decision actually said. The court never suggested it was a tax on not doing something. That’s silly. The 0bamacare “penalty” was a tax on income. When looked at objectively that is simply what it was. It was assessed as a percentage of a person’s income, within certain bounds, just like the “social security tax”, which is an income tax.
A tax that is only assessed and collected if you don’t do something.
It’s a distinction without a difference because checkbooks only understand numbers. They don’t care what Roberts calls the bill.
It was a tax on income, which you could be exempted from if you did a certain thing. That makes it no different from hundreds of tax incentives that Congress makes all the time. Congress decides that we need more asparagus, so it creates a tax deduction for asparagus growers. Grow asparagus and your tax bill is lower; don’t grow it and your tax bill is higher. How’s that different from this?
If you want to discuss whether it was a tax or a penalty you need to read the decision. To discuss the decision’s merits without having read it, without having any idea whatsoever what its reasoning was, is just dishonest.
The precedent Roberts relied on was a case where the Supreme Court struck down a “tax” because it was really a penalty in disguise. That court listed all the ways in which this so-called “tax” didn’t resemble any other known tax, and did resemble a penalty, and decided to follow the facts rather than what Congress called it. Roberts did the exact same thing. He applied all the tests that were in the previous decision, saw that they all came out on the “tax” side, so he followed the facts.
“We know you can’t afford this expensive insurance you may or may not need, so we’re going to change you more of what we know you don’t have.”
Bulls***, Milhouse. It was always a fine. It took Roberts doing a Gumby on language to make it a “tax.”
Agree, Milhouse is being as Orwellian as Roberts here.
The “President and Congress” in question meant it to be a non-compliance penalty, wrote it and passed it calling it that, and Roberts only did a linguistic and legal interpretation switch-eroo to save the bill.
That the fine was adjusted to the income of the person who didn’t comply is not indicative of it not being a fine – courts traditionally adjust the dollar amount of both bail and later in the process fines based on ability to cough up the dough.
No, it was not a fine. Read the decision. He cites precedent from the 1930s on all the points that distinguish taxes from fines, and shows how this fee checked all the boxes for a tax and none for a fine.
The question is simple: Do you believe that the courts should trust politicians and call everything whatever the politicians call them, or should it examine the facts before it and make an independent determination of what they are? If Congress says a tail is a leg, should the court accept that dogs have five legs? Or should it look at reality and say the politicians are lying? Roberts took the latter approach; it seems you support the former!
Wow, Milhouse argues both sides of the same analogy on different days — a skilled attorney, indeed!
Neither “tail” nor “leg” are arbitrary legal terms of art, that Congress can just change at will. But they can certainly change. Actual usage can change them.
That’s why when we interpret a law we must look not at what its words mean now, but what they meant when the law was enacted.
If usage ever changes so that the term “leg” now includes tails, then dogs will indeed have five legs. But Congress can’t make them have five legs.
All it can do is decree that for the purpose of certain laws tails shall be deemed as legs. That means they’re not legs but are treated as if they were. That Congress can do. It can say that wherever a statute says “leg” it shall now be read as including tails. It can do that because what it’s really doing is amending all those other statutes, which is within its power. It can’t do it to a constitutional provision, because it can’t amend that.
I suppose then the determination of “””actal usage””” falls to the court?
the cat laying (lying?) in my lap was not a fan of your reply LOL
oh well I liked it.
Likely Schrodinger was more of a dog person.
Your question on word choice hinges on whether or not it is a truthful cat.
such a thing exists? if so you would have thought the 4 here would have advised me of that fact
Lying. If the cat were laying it would be a bird.
It’s the same logic as declaring individual parts on the shelf at NAPA or Western Auto are now an automobile subject to tax, vehicle registration, placement of a tag and a DL to use. Cray Cray.
Don’t give them any ideas!
Given how often cars mysteriously attack people on their own, according to Leftstream media, maybe not a bad idea.
Why you trying to get Joe Dirt in trouble for ordering parts off auto trader?
James Brady was shot with Schrodinger’;s Gun.
For 33 years, he was both alive and murdered.
Perhaps SCOTUS intends to side with the Democrats. Is this the message the justices are sending lately? While they were initially ok with Heller, MacDonald and Bruen, the follow up has been poor. NYS has passed legislation that was worse for gun owners. Hawaii is in open defiance of Bruen. Amazingly a Brooklyn NY Judge, Abena Darkeh, sentenced a hobbist to ten years in prison for assembling a gun in his home. She remarked: “The Second Amendment doesn’t exist in my courtroom.” Check out her photo.
The Constitution…. Of, By and For the Government.
The present abolitionist definition is that only a firearm created or limited to firing only one round at a time and requiring manually loading each and every round is protected by the 2A.
Yes , SCOTUS is telegraphing that “assault weapons” are not 2A nor are magazines… What could possibly go wrong with governments regulating every part of a firearm?
“A free state” is now synonymous with “free speech”…..
Those darn Darkehs… /ducking
Hawaii isn’t in “open defiance” of Bruen. There was a lot of reporting, including on this blog, that the HI court had said the “Aloha spirit” overrides the 2A, or that the 2A doesn’t apply in HI, but none of that was true. The decision simply did not say or imply that. All of the quotes cited in the reporting were from the part of the decision that relates only to the HI state constitution.
The part of the decision that discusses the 2A took up only one page, because there was little to discuss. It found that the plaintiff had no standing to sue under the 2A, because he hadn’t applied for a permit. Had he applied for one and been denied then he would have had standing and the court would have had to either find for him or find another excuse not to.
And so far we don’t see SCOTUS siding with the Democrats. This decision wasn’t about the second amendment; the 2A wasn’t an issue at all, so it doesn’t reflect on the majority’s thinking about that.
I agree with UnCivilServant.
Using that logic, each individual round of ammunition will need a serial number. These people are beyond stupid….and they’re in charge! It appears we only have two conservative justices.
“Conservative” Supreme Court, indeed.
Well, it’s Trump’s Supreme Court. It was only because of Trump that this decision came down as it did.
I know Lefties want to control everyone and everything to bring about their Grand Communist Utopia, but in the real world, people have free will and sometimes change or don’t perform how you’d want.
It’s no more “Trump’s Supreme Court” than Biden/Obama’s. If anyone, it’s Bush’s Supreme Court since he appointed Roberts with his white-knuckled hold over the body.
Demonstrably untrue.
If Obama or Biden had nominated justices for those seats, not a single one of them would have voted differently.
It sounds to me as if Mr Patel should simply delete all of the ATF so-called rules.
blockquote>The regulation “treats unfinished frames and receivers and DIY-gunmaking kids as fully functional firearms.”
So, if a child makes a gun, he becomes a fully functional firearm?
Not so far fetched.
Already, if a child has a shoelace, he is in possession of a machine gun.
I used to think this country would be destroyed either by the chinese or muslins,. I’ve changed my mind. It’s being destroyed in my lifetime by lawyers and judges. What part of “Shall not be infringed” do they not understand. It’s simple. It’s an absolute. QED.
You don’t like the constitution? Change it or try to anyways.
For the record I don’t own a gun and don’t have any desire to obtain one, but I have nothing against them. They’re a tool. Nothing more. They’re not dangerous. People are dangerous.
No, it’s being destroyed by Trump appointed Judges.
You are obsessed with Trump. You are mentally ill and in need of professional help. Get it soon.
Shut up, you idiot.
Oh my goodness, all getting worked over nothing. I have built cars that had to be given a VIN# because I built it
I hit submit instead of another button. If you build anything that is covered by some sort of code or ordinance, you have to have a number for it. My cars had to have an assigned number from the state because it needed a tag. Guns are covered under many laws and I see nothing wrong with an ID #. Some will say it’s going to lead to confiscation but there is no proof of that and the number of gun owners is higher th
What good does a serial number do? It doesn’t stop crime, it’s only sometimes useful after the fact if the weapon can be recovered. I have an old shotgun that doesn’t have a serial number because it was made before serial numbers were required. Is that shotgun somehow more dangerous because it lacks a couple of numbers stamped into its frame? Is it more dangerous because the government can’t track it? (Actually it probably is, but in the good way).
Hit submit too soon. Cars are required to be registered. Firearms are not (except for a few unconstitutional states). Citizens have been building their own firearms since before this country was founded. It’s never been a question. Now, only registered manufacturers are allowed to make their own guns and private citizens who wish to turn a block of plastic or metal into a firearm have to be treated as if they’re buying a fully functional gun?
More accurately, cars, trailers, and the like need VINs only if they are to be driven on public roads. Not transported, not carried on another vehicle, but directly driven.
When I need to shoot my firearm on public property, I’ll be sure to come see you for my secret decoder number.
As far as I know, in the entire time that gun tracing has been possible, it has never been used to solve even a single crime.
Talk about useless.
I don’t believe that’s true. Serial numbering can conceivably solve a crime when:
1) The gun is left at the scene of the crime
2) The criminal has left the scene of the crime (or else the SN is unnecessary)
3) The registered owner of the gun is the criminal, or knows who possessed it at the time.
This practically never happens. Yet the law of large numbers says it must happen occasionally,
However, the numbers are smaller in Canada, where a $2M proposed gun registry that (of course) bloomed into a $2B gun registry, never solved a single crime, OTHER than the entirely synthetic crime of “failure to register a gun,” which crime was CREATED solely by the existence of the registry,
As far as I know it has never happened. At least, proponents of the system can’t seem to find a case where it’s happened.
it’s only sometimes useful after the fact if the weapon can be recovered
And even then, I think only 1 or 2 instances of it actually helping solve a crime have occurred in the last 40 years. And it wasn’t the only evidence proving the crime in those cases, either.
Unfortunately, the US Constitution was written before “””Commercial vehicles”” and license and registration thereof was a thing. That’s why you need a VIN — to drive it on the State’s roads.
Whereas a rifle is an “inherently lawful” firearm, so there’s no obvious reason why it must be de facto licensed and registered.
Another way to put it is that driving is a privilege and so can be licensed and regulated. It is not a right.
Yes but more specifically operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway is the privilege being granted. If you have enough private land and stay on it you drive your vehicle without gov’t license just about any old way you wish…so long as it is on your property.
Certain constitutionalists would clarify that “driving” is properly defined as operating a vehicle commercially (for hire / in commerce), whereas operating a private vehicle is merely “traveling” and cannot constitutionally be subject to license.
What would be their basis for that assertion?
The problem is that if a citizen builds his own gun, and then needs to serialize it and register the serial number (the only possible reason for requiring the gun to be numbered), this creates a de facto arms registry.
I’m of the mind that government has no authority to know if, how, when, or where I’m exercising any of my rights.
I do believe (I may be wrong wrong) that the “manufacturer” can choose any serial number he wants, as long as it is unique to things he built, and although he must keep paperwork on it, he need not send it in to anybody. Of course, there are federal laws that authorize federal agents to “inspect” those records as part of a criminal investigation, which in practice means whenever they *** well want to.
The issue with a registry is two-fold. One is the inherent function of a registry is to track who is exercising that right and in what way. (An equivalent for another right would be the demand a few years back to not allow people to be anonymous on the internet.) But the other is the idea of not incriminating yourself (the 5th Amendment). While a law to confiscate any arms would be blatantly un-Constitutional, by registering your possession of that firearm you have immediately incriminated yourself the moment that arm becomes illegal.
Many people do not agree with that interpretation, but it is fairly obvious from the text of the various amendments and the writings of the Founders.
Did you have to separately serialize the carburetor and the muffler and the intake manifold and the engine block and the steering wheel? And then treat each one of those as if they’re a separate car?
I don’t think that was what they decided in this case. I haven’t gone through and done all the reading myself, but it seems like they held that a rule saying “a kit that contains an 80% lower, a jig kit to make it 100%, and everything else that makes a firearm* is really a whole firearm.”
But, that’s part of the problem. It’s really hard to define this stuff legally, though you “know it when you see it.” And those things almost always make for bad law.
(* What I saw was them talking about a kit that includes barrels, lower components, upper components, etc.)
As far as my activities go, I wouldn’t ever do that anyway. If you’re going to order all of it together, from the same company, then why not just buy the dang firearm assembled? If you’re going to put it together your own self, then buy all those things separately so you can get exactly what you want across all the bits and pieces. Doesn’t mean no one should be allowed to do it that way, just scratching my head as to why.
You can own or build a car without a VIN. A 12 yo can own a car. The car can’t be operated on public roads…that’s all. Buying a firearm is more regulated even if never taken off private property.
What’s their definition of “ready conversion”?
Someday, maybe, perhaps that ingot may become a real boy.
They make a case using something obvious: you buy a 80% lower, along with the jig kit and tools, altogether, AND all the rest of the parts, all in one box from the company.
That’s not what many think they are really aiming for.
Forgive my presumption, but that doesn’t seem like a bright thing to do. I mean, I never source my parts from the same source even for things I don’t care if the government knows I have. Maybe that’s not an option.
My grandfather was a gunsmith as well as a nationally ranked marksman.
He would say: “As long as I can keep my tools, I am back in business within six months.”
Pro-tranny and anti-Second Amendment. Gorsuch is building quite the activist résumé, roaming through whatever rotten field his misguided and capricious “jurisprudence” takes him.
Never fear…he will protect you from every harm…he is a justice!!
He is not anti-second amendment. This case was not about the second amendment. It was not raised by either party, so the decision couldn’t take it into account.
Everyone here seems to be focusing on the Second Amendment aspect of this case, which is the least troubling part of it. (And this is coming from a 2A absolutist)
This is a huge step backward on Chevron. Allowing the ATF to define hunks of metal as guns, without clear direction from congress, is returning legislative power to the administrative state. Power that the Supreme Court seemed to be trending toward removing.
Prior to this decision, it seemed clear that the Supreme Court was agreeing with those of us who feel that the administrative state has wrested too much legislative power away from the appropriate branch of government. Now, it seems they aren’t quite as in alignment as we thought.
This opens the door to more tomfoolery from unelected bureaucrats, who can simply bide their time until the political environment is right, before redefining law to their own viewpoint.
Very troubling.
Chevron said that whenever an agency offered an interpretation of a law that was just barely plausible, the courts must accept that interpretation for the purpose at issue.
Now that has been overturned. Courts are no longer bound by agencies’ interpretations of the law, even if they’re plausible. If the court thinks the law means something else it can say so, and strike down the agency action that depended on the rejected interpretation.
But that doesn’t mean they have to. In this case the court agreed with the new ATF interpretation, or at least found it plausible enough that a reasonable person reading the act in 1968 might easily have read it that way.
OK, this decision was NOT about the 2A. And, I loathe the cowardice involved in the court that they can’t simply look at it and state it violates the actual law and infringes on the 2A. I also know how it gets perceived when the other side does that crap, so….
But, the real problem here is interpretation of the law by an agency. And, even there, the plaintiffs didn’t go there with their challenge.
But a couple of things to keep in mind:
The regulation was a little … squishy. It was written to allow broad interpretation, IMO, but the court came down on a specific interpretation. And that is the folks who were selling entire kits – everything, including the 80% lower and a jig kit to finish that – have to do the same thing as someone selling an already assembled gun.
But, the ATF seemed like they wanted to regulate, say, a lower with a jig kit – which might be a different question. And they seemed to say you couldn’t even order a lower and separately order all the rest of the parts, from the same company.
Basically, the world had found a way around the “manufactured” language, and the ATF said, “Hey! That’s not fair!” and changed the rules.
Which is really where I’m disappointed with this. As someone else pointed out, this puts a little Chevron back into the mix. Because having to change rules like this demonstrates the infeasibility, in the long run, of the “manufacture” rule. It really should make the court throw its hands up and declare the law is null and void. But in that world the sky is a beautiful shade of blue even the EPA will never manage to obtain.
Courts can’t address questions that aren’t before them. That’s the main limitation on courts’ power. You do not want to remove it. That way lies the judicial coup that was pulled in Israel 30 years ago.
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