Category: Courts

Ghost Guns Come Back to Haunt the Biden ATF

The ATF’s blunder on 80% frames misfires in court, then backfires as 0% pistols enter the game

In April of 2022, the Biden administration sought to ban the commercial sale of incomplete firearm frames or receivers (commonly referred to as 80% lowers) through ATF Final Rule 2021R-05F. Entirely disrupting the long-held American tradition of home gunsmithing, ATF’s activist reinterpretation of an existing law seeks to prohibit the sale of 80% receivers unless the vendor is a federally registered firearms dealer and each sale is approved by the FBI’s background check system and accompanied by a permanent record of the transaction.

ATF’s 2021R-05F rule tried to accomplish this by legally reclassifying 80% lowers — partially completed receivers that were not previously regulated as firearms — as firearms. If you aren’t familiar with 80% frames, you should understand that these are plastic or metal blocks that, at the time of their sale, cannot accept the parts, trigger components, or the other pieces necessary for a firearm to operate. They are not guns; they can’t be loaded, they can’t fire, they have no firing mechanism. And yet the ATF contends that because these could become guns, they should be sold and regulated as guns.

That’s because 80% frames are purchased by hobbyists who also buy parts kits, jigs, and tooling and will work at home to complete the rest of the machining and assembly process required to create a viable firearm. Building 80% guns is popular with gun enthusiasts who enjoy the satisfaction of building their own firearms and the personalization of customizing their firearms to their specifications.

The firearms created by these hobbyists are what the ATF calls “privately made firearms” and what the media calls “ghost guns.”

An “80%” AR-15 receiver. Note the lack of finish, trigger, or lower receiver parts. The bare metal must be machined away and holes drilled to accommodate the trigger, hammer/trigger pins, safety, and more…

In fairness, some ghost guns are also produced by the criminal element. And it’s also true that these firearms have become increasingly popular amongst prohibited possessors. But in a country that has largely traded any real concern for order, public safety, or property rights for legalized shoplifting, mass encampments of homeless drug addicts, and civil rights patronage schemes, one must remember that our government is simply acting in bad faith when it comes to gun laws like 05F.

If it were important to the government to stop gun crime, they would focus their efforts on St. Louis or Baltimore. But it’s not important to the government to stop these crimes, it’s important to the federal government to stop you from being able to defend yourself from them.

When 05F was added to the federal registrar, Polymer80, Gray Wolf Tactical, Tactical Machine LLC, Defense Distributed, and a number of other companies that specialize in the sale or manufacture of 80% frames, components, and tooling were all at risk of closing or being irreparably harmed by the ATF’s new interpretation of existing gun laws.

These conditions precipitated a lawsuit, and in March of this year, a federal judge granted an injunction in favor of, among others, Defense Distributed, the Texas-based maker of the Ghost Gunner machine.

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Progressive Judge Says Commerce Clause Overrides the Bill of Rights

U.S.A. — At least one judge in the Third Circuit believes the Commerce Clause overrides the Bill of Rights. In a recent decision of The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in the case Range v Lombardo, on June 6, 2023, the en banc court ruled some felony convictions are not sufficient to restrict Second Amendment rights, based on the historical record. Eleven of 15 judges concurred with the majority opinion. Four judges dissented.

Judge Roth makes a strong case, based on Progressive philosophy, the Commerce Clause overrides the Bill of Rights. She gives the usual litany of Progressive “arguments”: Things have changed since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The federal government has to have more power than the Bill of Rights allows. That was then. This is now. Here is part of the dissent from Judge Roth of the Third Circuit P. 96 of 107 :

In Bruen, the Supreme Court considered whether a regulation issued by a state government was a facially constitutional exercise of its traditional police power.

Range presents a distinguishable question: Whether a federal statute, which the Supreme Court has upheld as a valid exercise of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause, 2 is constitutional as applied to him.

The parties and the Majority conflate these spheres of authority and fail to address binding precedents affirming Congress’s power to regulate the possession of firearms in interstate commerce. Because Range lacks standing under the applicable Commerce Clause jurisprudence, I respectfully dissent.

Judge Roth explicitly states the modern expansion of the commerce clause, to include virtually all activity that has any effect on commerce, overrides the Bill of Rights because the scope of modern commerce is far greater than commerce at the founding.

This case involves the Second Amendment. Roth’s logic as easily applies to the First Amendment and others. Virtually all First Amendment usage involves items that have a connection to interstate commerce – printing presses, telephones, computers, satellites, fiber optic cables, etc. Church pews are made of wood shipped across state lines, paid for by credit cards recognized by interstate banks. Nearly all homes affect interstate commerce. Under the expansive interpretation, the federal government could regulate all use and sale of homes and inspect them at any time, in spite of the Fourth Amendment. Under the expansive, Progressive interpretation, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are swallowed up. Virtually all of life is encompassed by the absurd extension of the Commerce Clause created by Progressive judges.

Most of what Judge Roth writes about modern times applied to commerce at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

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Gun Advocates Quick to Sue Over Connecticut’s New Gun Safety Law

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday signed the most wide-ranging state gun control bill since a 2013 law passed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, sparking an immediate lawsuit by gun rights supporters seeking to block a ban on open carrying and other parts of the new law.

It’s the latest legal fight over Connecticut’s gun laws, which are some of the strictest in the country, since the U.S. Supreme Court last year expanded gun rights and opened several states’ laws to challenges. The landmark 2013 gun law and others also are being contested in court.

“This bill that I just signed takes smart and strategic steps to strengthen the laws in Connecticut to prevent tragedy from happening,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “The inaction of Congress on critical legislation to keep Americans safe requires each state to act individually.”

Idaho-based We the Patriots USA, a group that bills itself as a protector of gun and other rights, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday with other plaintiffs in an effort to block the law, the group’s lawyer said.

“Individuals have a right to bear arms under both the state and federal constitutions,” the lawyer, Norm Pattis, wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “The state constitution guarantees a right to protect oneself. No one sacrifices that right by walking out of their front door. In an era of defunding police, permissive bail reform and liberal clemency, folks depend on the right to self-defense more than ever.”

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Federal Trial Rolls On.

06.08.2023

Before we share a report of the third day of OFF’s federal trial to stop the unconstitutional Measure 114, we want to take a moment to once again send our sincere thanks to the Republican Senators who have risked so much to protect our rights and basic common sense by refusing to participate in the Democrat’s war on sanity.

By protesting the Democrat’s outrageous agenda by denying quorum, the Senate Republicans, and two Independents, (Art Robinson and Brian Boquist) have put the brakes on SB 348.

SB 348, as you know, was Floyd Prozanski’s effort to make Measure 114 even worse than it was when passed by out of state millionaires.

The Democrat propaganda machine and their mouthpieces in the media have been working non-stop to demonize the peaceful protest of the Senators who denied quorum to protect the minority, even as they continue to pretend to want to protect the rights of minorities.

So please take a moment to send a word of thanks to Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp and ask him to share your appreciation with his fellow Senators.

At the trial we face a number of challenges. As you may know the Judge has declared that she will not hear arguments about the constitutionality of Measure 114 as applied. Her position is that the issue is “not ripe” because no one has yet been harmed by the measure.  Of course, the only reason no one has been harmed yet is because a state judge in Harney County, in a separate decision, placed an injunction on the measure. So it cannot go into effect until after a full trial in State Court which we expect to happen in September.

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FPC Files Opening Brief in Lawsuit Challenging ATF Pistol Brace Rule

NEW ORLEANS, LA (June 5, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an opening brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Mock v. Garland, FPC and FPC Action Foundation’s challenge to ATF’s pistol brace rule. Today’s brief was filed less than two weeks after the court clarified that its injunction against the rule covers FPC’s members. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“The merits panel should extend the interim relief pending appeal into a preliminary injunction,” argues the brief. “The Final Rule violates the Second Amendment and is not authorized by the NFA. But even if the NFA is ambiguous enough to allow for the Final Rule, then the Final Rule is barred by lenity and reflects an unconstitutional delegation of authority to the Agencies. The Final Rule also violates the First Amendment by considering the speech of manufacturers and third parties, is hopelessly vague, and violates both the substantive and notice provisions of the APA. On each of these points, Appellants are likely to succeed on the merits.”

“Receiving the injunction pending appeal was just the first step to ensuring that the Plaintiffs, including Maxim Defense’s customers and FPC’s members, are properly protected from the federal government while we litigate our full case against ATF’s stabilizing brace rule,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation and attorney for FPC in this case. “All we’re asking is for the Fifth Circuit to preserve the decade-long status quo, as it has already done, through a preliminary injunction to protect millions of peaceable people from this unconstitutional and illegal overreach.”

En banc! U.S. 3rd Circuit Court (The Bruen decision strikes again)

TLDR:
Range pleaded guilty in 1995 to committing welfare fraud, a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. As we know, GCA’ 68 bans people convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year and a day in prison – which are usually felonies – from buying guns.
Range sued the government in 2020 saying the ban violated his 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
The appeals court – en banc – ruled that since there were no text, history or tradition of restrictions like this when the 2nd and the 14th amendments were ratified, the restriction was unconstitutional.

Another scene in the opening act of the end of gun control the goobermint has foisted on us

No Loss of Second Amendment Rights for Welfare Fraud

Range_v_Garland_En_Banc_Opinion

Oregon Measure 114 gun law faces federal court test Monday

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal trial over Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure opened Monday in Portland, marking a critical next step for one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation after months of being tied up in the courts.

The trial, which is being held before a judge and not a jury, will determine whether the law violates the U.S. Constitution.

It comes after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment that has upended gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. It changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions, telling judges that gun laws must be consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The Oregon measure’s fate is being carefully watched as one of the first new gun restrictions passed since the Supreme Court ruling last June.

The legal battle over in Oregon could well last beyond the trial. Whatever the judge decides, the ruling is likely to be appealed, potentially moving all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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After Durham Report Excoriates FBI for Abuse of Power, GOP Won’t Reauthorize FISA Spy Law Without Reforms.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner, said the GOP won’t back reauthorizing a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without major changes, signaling a bipartisan coalition in support of modifying the act that allows for spying on Americans with the approval of a secret court.

Mr. Turner has aligned himself with Representatives Darin LaHood and Mike Garcia in pushing for changes to FISA, and its Section 702 in particular, citing Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the FBI as a reason.

“We have been very clear on a bipartisan basis with the intelligence community and the FBI that there is no support in Congress for a clean reauthorization of 702,” Mr. Turner told the Washington Examiner.

Mr. Turner is aligning himself with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as well as other Democrats who have been critical of the power FISA gives the intelligence community. President Biden, however, has pushed for renewal.

“Reforms are necessary. We will be taking up the issue of reforms, and they will not be limited to 702 itself,” Mr. Turner said. “It will encompass both abuses that we are aware of and abuses that are now in the public domain as a result of disclosure and Durham.”

The provision in question grants broad authority to the FBI to collect data on communications from foreign nationals without a warrant. However, critics say it has been abused and used as a backdoor to spy on Americans.

The coming fight over reauthorization will be the first time critics of the law will have serious leverage since the passage of Section 702 in 2008.

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New Oregon gun law, Measure 114, to face federal court test next week

Oregonians passed Measure 114 in November. It would ban the manufacture, purchase or sale of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It would also require people to take a safety course and pass a background check to get a permit allowing them to purchase firearms. But before the law went into effect, it ran into a flurry of legal challenges at the state and federal levels.

The state case is expected to pick up again in September. And several bills meant to tighten Oregon’s gun laws are among the legislation sidelined by the Republican-led walkout in the Oregon Senate.

In the meantime, the federal bench trial — no jury — starts next week in Portland and will be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee. The federal trial, which is slated to run for five days, will result in a first ruling about whether the new law is legal under the U.S. Constitution. No matter what Immergut decides, the ruling will likely be appealed, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A lawyer for one of the groups hoping to overturn the law declined an invitation to come on Think Out Loud this week, citing the pending case. But a lawyer for the state, Michael Kron, did agree to come on the show and spoke to host Dave Miller on Wednesday. Kron is special counsel to the State Attorney General and is part of the legal team defending the voter-passed law.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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Gun rights advocates ask judges to uphold ruling in fight over gun law

Attorneys for Second Amendment advocates fighting New Jersey’s new gun law are urging a federal appeals court to uphold a recent ruling blocking most of the law from taking effect.

State attorneys failed to prove anyone would be irreparably harmed by U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb’s order earlier this month affirming people’s right to carry guns in many places state lawmakers banned them, the lawyers wrote in two briefs filed Tuesday in response to the state attorney general’s appeal of Bumb’s order.

Attorneys representing New Jersey gun owners Ronald Koons and Aaron Siegel filed separate challenges the day Gov. Phil Murphy signed the law in December. The cases were later consolidated.

In two briefs totaling almost 60 pages, the attorneys repeatedly refer to Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down restrictions on gun carry, as a reason why the state’s bid to halt Bumb’s preliminary injunction is “flawed from start to finish,” as Siegel’s attorneys put it.

“Governments may bar the carrying of firearms in only ‘exceptional circumstances,’” Koons’ attorneys noted, citing Bruen. “The exception cannot become the rule.”

In defending lawmakers’ decision to ban guns in about 25 “sensitive places,” the state failed to prove such prohibitions are “historically justified,” as Bruen requires, Koons’ attorneys added.

“The state is left with speculative public-safety and public-confusion arguments,” they wrote.

But any ruling further altering the status quo would just add to public confusion, they added.

Both briefs take aim at the new law’s “anti-carry default,” in which lawmakers banned guns on government and private property that is open to the public, such as stores, and guns loaded and within reach in vehicles. Private property owners have the right to forbid guns on their property, but the government can’t make that decision for them, the attorneys argue. Bumb had enjoined both the private property and vehicle restrictions.

“To the extent there is any ambiguity, it must be interpreted in favor of the Second Amendment,” Koons’ attorneys wrote.

A spokeswoman from the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

Massachusetts assault weapons ban targeted in federal suit 1998 law at odds with Supreme Court decisions, group says

A national gun rights group has asked a federal judge to immediately halt the state’s longstanding ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines while the court decides whether the law should stand at all.

The National Association for Gun Rights, a Colorado-based Second Amendment advocacy group, on Tuesday was heard by First Circuit U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in their attempt to overturn a 1998 assault weapons weapon ban made a permanent law in 2004 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Massachusetts has been directly violating the Second Amendment for decades,” NAGR President Dudley Brown said. “Under Bruen, there is no doubt in my mind the days of Romney’s Assault Weapons Ban are numbered. The National Association for Gun Rights will see to it that the rights of the people of Massachusetts are restored.”

The gun rights group says that their lawsuit comes following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which struck down certain licensing conditions in New York State and elsewhere, including Massachusetts.

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Oregon’s magazine ban, pistol purchase permitting scheme set for trial

Oregon’s narrowly-approved Measure 114 has been on hold for the past several months thanks to a circuit court judge’s injunction, but a separate federal lawsuit is set to go to trial next week, and gun owners are hoping that the ballot initiative will be struck down entirely by the courts.

U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut declined to issue a temporary restraining order of her own shortly after the law was approved by less than 51% of voters last November, ruling that the magazine ban was presumptively constitutional on the theory that the magazines aren’t likely protected by the Second Amendment in the first place, but even if they are, banning them is okay because its meant to address “unprecedented societal concerns” about mass shootings. Now she’s set to preside over a five-day trial that will delve more deeply into the constitutional questions surrounding Measure 114’s ban on commonly-owned magazines, with the state of Oregon and Measure 114’s defenders arguing that the bans are a life-saving necessity and opponents maintaining that the ban is a violation of our fundamental right to armed self-defense.

Immergut last week denied each side’s motions to rule in their favor without a trial.

“The record contains genuine disputes of material fact, which would benefit from full development through trial,” she wrote.

She said she’ll consider whether large-capacity magazines “constitute a dramatic technological change from earlier firearms capable of firing more than 10 rounds.”

Immergut also noted that she’ll take up the constitutionality of the gun permit requirement under Measure 114, but she likely won’t consider how it will be applied in reaching her opinion.

Measure challengers contend the permits will deprive law-abiding citizens of guns because state police haven’t yet hired sufficient staff to handle the anticipated increase in background checks required to obtain a permit.

“Evidence about future implementation is not ripe for determination in this trial,” Immergut said.

Based on Immergut’s previous ruling, it seems pretty clear that she’s looking for ways to justify the ban, and as Reason’s Jacob Sullum noted shortly after she declined to issue a TRO, she seems willing to twist the words of the Supreme Court in order to do so.

The FPC cites a couple of real-life cases that suggest magazine capacity can be crucial in fending off armed home invaders. More generally, it notes that shots fired in self-defense often miss their target, even when fired by trained police officers. Measure 114’s exemption for police officers recognizes that fact, the FPC says, and “the average Oregon citizen has just as much right as a police officer to defend herself with standard capacity magazines.”

For Immergut, however, the crucial point is that situations where Oregon’s magazine limit would impair self-defense are “exceedingly rare.” In effect, she is suggesting that arms are not covered by the Second Amendment unless the government agrees that they are “necessary”—and not for “lawful purposes” generally but for self-defense in particular.

Immergut even questions whether “large capacity magazines” are “in common use” for “lawful purposes,” which seems undeniable given how many law-abiding Americans own them. “Plaintiffs have not shown that magazines capable of accepting more than ten rounds of ammunition are firearms in ‘”common use” today for self-defense’ and thereby covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” she writes.

The Supreme Court has said that the central component of the Second Amendment is self-defense, but nothing in Heller, McDonald, or Bruen suggests that only arms that are in common use for self-defense are protected. If so, that would set up a bizarre standard that would allow for single shot bolt action hunting rifles to be banned, while protecting the handguns that were the primary target of gun control activists for decades.

While self-defense may be at the heart of the Second Amendment, the text plainly (and simply) refers to the right to keep and bear arms. Unless the state of Oregon can come up with longstanding historical analogues to banning commonly-owned arms (which they’ve so far been able to do), the state’s ban should be overturned by Immergut. I’m not all that confident the judge will apply the Bruen test appropriately and fairly, especially given her initial opinion, but unless she’s engaging in some anti-gun activism from the bench it shouldn’t be a close call to find in favor of the plaintiffs when the trial concludes next week.

Second Amendment Roundup: U.S. Seeking Cert on Prohibited Persons

The Administration is hoping that bad facts will make bad law.

Federal law prohibits nine categories of persons from receipt and possession of a firearm. As the Supreme Court continues to develop its Second Amendment jurisprudence, which ones of those types are most significant in regard to representativeness and numerosity?

Felons in possession of firearms have been the leading type of prosecution under the federal Gun Control Act since its enactment in 1968. There were 7,454 such convictions in 2021.

The ban on felon possession is found in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), which also includes eight other categories of prohibited persons – all of which pale into insignificance compared to the felon ban. One of the more minor categories is a person subject to a domestic restraining order. While the feds aren’t too good at posting current data, in the years 2013 to 2017, there were 26,717 such convictions based on felon status, and only 121 for restraining order status. The proportions can’t be much different today.

Given that disparity, why is Attorney General Merrick Garland so keen in having the Supreme Court decide whether the restraining order folks, instead of the felons, are protected by the Second Amendment? The felon issue is ubiquitous, and not just because of the sheer numbers. It involves not only the violent felony vs. non-violent felony issue, but also whether any limits exist in this day-and-age in which almost anything can be a felony. Why has Martha Stewart forfeited her right to have a gun for self-defense?

So why would the government try to convince the Supreme Court to take up the atypical issue regarding persons with a restraining order? Here’s my take.

The Biden Administration is salivating at the prospect of United States v. Rahimi, about which I’ve written previously, being the next Second Amendment case to be decided by the Supreme Court. That’s because the defendant in the case appears to be such an odious character. Arrested by police following multiple shooting sprees, Rahimi was prohibited from gun possession because he was subject to a prior agreed-upon civil protective order. The Fifth Circuit found the ban to be facially unconstitutional because no historical analogue allowed disarming a person based on a civil protective order rather than a criminal proceeding.

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Big win for homesick sailor forced to surrender guns

If someone feels a little down because they miss their family, is that alarming? So alarming that people should be forced to give up their guns?

That was the question at the heart of the matter in a case involving a Navy sailor stationed in Hawaii who was denied a gun permit and required to turn in his firearms because he acknowledged seeing professional help to deal with that depression.

Some would argue that missing one’s family is a good sign, a sign that they have people who love them and whose love is reciprocated.

Hawaii didn’t really get that.

The state stomped on the rights of Michael Santucci and Santucci responded with a lawsuit.

On Thursday, he scored a big win.

Santucci did everything right and by the book. He sought to register his firearms with the state as required and acknowledged getting help for his depression.

As a result, he was told to hand in his guns and forfeit one of the rights he serves in our military to protect for the rest of us.

It was idiotic.

Luckily, the judge agreed.

The court agreed with Mr. Santucci that he was not disqualified from registering his firearms based on Section 134-7. It determined that Mr. Santucci’s affirmative response to Question 11 of the Firearm Application Questionnaire, which inquired about behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders, did not render him ineligible for firearm registration or ownership under the statute. The court concluded that Mr. Santucci should not have been required to provide a doctor’s letter or compelled to surrender his firearms solely based on his affirmative response to Question 11.

Honolulu argued that it was obligated by law to request a doctor’s letter in accordance with Section 134-3, which mandates firearm registration using forms prescribed by the Attorney General. However, the court found no basis for requiring a doctor’s letter after an affirmative response to Question 11, as neither the statute nor the prescribed form supported such a requirement.

The court granted the preliminary injunction, ordering the return of Mr. Santucci’s firearms, and enjoined Honolulu from demanding specific certifications solely based on an affirmative response to Question 11. It also stipulated legal fees to be paid in the matter, with Honolulu paying $102,500 and the State paying $28,000 more.

So, in other words, it wasn’t just a win for Santucci, but also for gun owners in general.

Look, while I disagree with it entirely, I get the desire to keep guns out of the hands of people suffering from mental disorders. Some people are dangerous, either to themselves or others, and many figure that’s a good enough reason to curtail the rights of others.

Yet most people who seek counseling aren’t a threat to anyone, including themselves. They’re just feeling down and don’t want to anymore, or they’re processing a rough childhood or some other kind of trauma so they can live a better, more fulfilling life.

For authorities to swoop in and decide such people cannot be trusted with guns is wrong.

Moreover, it’s likely to prevent people from seeking help in the first place.

The truth is that if Santucci was dangerous, he’d have just lied on the form. If he was planning to kill himself, he wouldn’t worry about a perjury charge. If he were planning something far, far worse than that, I’m pretty sure perjury would have been the least of his concerns.

Instead, Santucci just wanted to obey the law, and he got screwed for it.

Now, things are being set to right.

By the way, I’m a member of FPC. I suggest you join, or at least donate, simply because this organization is very proactive about using the courts to rein in the bureaucraps, which is realistically going to be the decisive way to get the job done and eventually restore our complete RKBA

Fifth Circuit Clarifies that its Injunction Against ATF Pistol Brace Rule Covers FPC’s Members

NEW ORLEANS, LA (May 26, 2023) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) released a statement on the Fifth Circuit’s Order clarifying that the Injunction Pending Appeal in Mock v. Garland applies to FPC’s members, Maxim Defense’s customers, and the individual plaintiffs’ resident family members. The order, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

FPC challenged ATF’s administrative rule that seeks to reclassify “braced pistols” as “short-barreled rifles.” In so doing, the rule would transform millions of peaceable people into felons overnight simply for owning a firearm that has been lawful to own for a decade, unless they either destroy their constitutionally protected property or comply with the NFA’s onerous and unconstitutional requirements.

FPC has argued that the rule is a violation of both the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because it infringes upon the fundamental and natural rights of the People. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to secure their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

Per the Fifth Circuit’s Order: “This clarification is granted essentially for the reasons concisely set forth in the May 25, 2023, Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Reply to Their Opposed Motion for Clarification of Injunction Pending Appeal. . . Plaintiffs merely request clarification on whether their reading of the term ʻPlaintiffs’ to include the customers and members whose interests Plaintiffs Maxim Defense and Firearms Policy Coalition (ʻFPC’) have represented since day one of this litigation is correct.’  That reading is correct. Also as requested, the term “Plaintiffs in this case” includes the individual plaintiffs’ resident family members.”

“We’re incredibly excited to report that the Fifth Circuit has clarified that our injunction covers FPC’s members and Maxim Defense’s customers, as we have always argued for,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “This relief will offer protection while we continue to fight against ATF’s overreach.”

Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org.

Second Federal Judge Expands Block on Biden Pistol-Brace Ban as Registration Deadline Approaches

Another federal court has cast doubt on the legality of one of President Biden’s unilateral attempts at implementing new gun restrictions.

United States District Judge Jane L. Boyle of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction against the ATF’s ban on pistols equipped with stabilizing braces on Thursday in the case Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) v. ATF. Drawing on the injunction issued against the ban on Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Boyle said similar concerns over administrative procedure and Second Amendment rights were at issue in the case before her court. She limited her injunction to just the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“Although the Fifth Circuit’s order limited relief to the plaintiffs in that case, the Court finds the same relief is appropriate here,” Boyle wrote in her order. “And while Plaintiffs raise some arguments that were not raised in Mock, the resolution of that appeal will almost certainly affect, if not control, the Court’s decision on Plaintiffs’ Motion. For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART the Motion and issues a preliminary injunction as to Plaintiffs in this case only, pending resolution of the expedited appeal in Mock v. Garland.”

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