Washington, D.C.- The National Association for Gun Rights scored a victory for gun rights when Judge Reed O’Connor, federal district court judge in the Northern District of Texas, granted a preliminary injunction Saturday in NAGR’s lawsuit challenging the ATF’s expansion of the statutory definition of “machinegun.”
The court’s injunction determined that “the ATF’s expanded definition of ‘machinegun’” is “likely unlawful.”
“This is our second victory in less than a week for the Second Amendment and a blow against the ATF’s unconstitutional legislating by bureaucratic rulemaking,” said Hannah Hill, Executive Director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights (legal arm of the National Association for Gun Rights.)
The National Association for Gun Rights filed the lawsuit in August against the ATF, National Association for Gun Rights v. Garland, in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, “seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to end Defendants’ arbitrary, capricious, and otherwise unlawful efforts to misclassify Forced Reset Triggers as ‘machineguns’ under the National Firearms Act of 1934.” This action was filed in the same appellate circuit that ruled earlier this year that bump stocks are not machine guns in Cargill v. Garland. The district court also granted a preliminary injunction last week in the group’s lawsuit challenging the ATF’s pistol brace rule.
The injunction only covers the parties in this lawsuit (including National Association for Gun Rights members) and stops the ATF from:
(1) Initiating or pursuing criminal prosecutions for possession of FRTs;
(2) Initiating or pursuing civil proceedings for possessing, selling, or manufacturing FRTs based on the claim that FRTs are machineguns;
(3) Initiating or pursuing criminal prosecutions for representing to the public of potential buyers and sellers that FRTs are not machineguns;
(4) Initiating or pursuing civil actions for representing to the public of potential buyers and sellers that FRTs are not machineguns;
(5) Sending “Notice Letters” or other similar communications stating that FRTs are machineguns;
(6) Requesting “voluntarily” surrender of FRTs to the government based on the claim that FRTs are machineguns;
(7) Destroying any previously surrendered or seized FRTs; and
(8) Otherwise interfering in the possession, sale, manufacture, transfer, or exchange of FRTs based on the claim that FRTs are machineguns.
“The courts continue to push back against the ATF’s regulatory overreach,” said Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights. “The first goal of the Texas lawsuit is accomplished – to protect NAGR’s members and supporters who own FRTs from an out-of-control ATF. The end goal is to win the case and bring a permanent end to the ATF’s FRT trigger ban.”
A copy of the injunction may be found here: http://nationalgunrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/gov.uscourts.txnd_.380076.53.0.pdf
The National Association for Gun Rights is the nation’s largest “no compromise” pro-gun organization, with 4.5 million members nationwide.
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