The Supreme Court is set to decide whether the agency may expand criminal liability under the Gun Control Act.
On October 8th, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Garland v. VanDerStok, a challenge to the Final Rule of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) from 2022 redefining and drastically expanding the meaning of the terms “firearm” and “firearm frame or receiver.”
The Final Rule expanded “firearm” to include “a weapon parts kit that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.”
It also redefined “frame or receiver” to include “a partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frame or receiver” that is “designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver.”
Federal law requires persons engaged in the business of manufacturing or importing firearms to engrave them with serial numbers.
Private individuals have always been free to make their own firearms without such federal restrictions.
The new definitions have the effect of subjecting hobbyists to federal controls.
The Fifth Circuit held that ATF may not change the definition of “firearm” enacted by Congress and that its redefinition of “frame or receiver” failed to reflect the original, common understanding of that term.
It thus ruled the definitions to be beyond ATF’s authority and arbitrary and capricious.
The government hopes to stampede members of the Supreme Court into believing that so-called “ghost guns could be made from kits and parts that were widely available online and allowed anyone with basic tools and rudimentary skills to assemble a fully functional firearm in as little as twenty minutes.”
Read more at Independent Institute.
