{"id":1063,"date":"2023-07-01T13:53:29","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T13:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2023-07-01T13:53:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T13:53:30","slug":"huge-win-for-gun-owners-as-federal-judge-vacates-atf-rule-on-unfinished-frames-and-receivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2023\/07\/01\/huge-win-for-gun-owners-as-federal-judge-vacates-atf-rule-on-unfinished-frames-and-receivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge win for gun owners as federal judge vacates ATF rule on unfinished frames and receivers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Joe Biden\u2019s anti-gun agenda has taken another body blow, with a U.S. District Judge in Texas putting a halt to the ATF\u2019s rule treating unfinished frames and receivers as if they\u2019re firearms themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Friday decision, Judge Reed O\u2019Connor smacked down the rule, finding that the ATF overstepped its authority to promulgate regulations and instead crossed the line into making new law<\/em>. The Firearms Policy Coalition, which sued the agency along with the Second Amendment Foundation and several individual plaintiffs, celebrated with a late night email to members and supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to see the Court agree that ATF\u2019s Frame or Receiver Rule exceeds the agency\u2019s congressionally limited authority,\u201d said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF\u2019s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation and FPC\u2019s counsel in this case. \u201cWith this decision, the Court has properly struck down ATF\u2019s Rule and ensured that it cannot enforce that which it never had the authority to publish in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a monumental victory against the tyrannical ATF. Firearms Policy Coalition and FPC Law have argued that this rogue agency has unlawfully attacked gun owners in this latest round of \u2018rulemaking\u2019 and we are grateful to see the Court agree,\u201d said Richard Thomson, FPC\u2019s Vice President of Communications. \u201cWe will not stop, however, with this latest victory. FPC and FPC Law will continue to bring these cases to put a stop to the immoral and unconstitutional actions of the disarmament regime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

You can read O\u2019Connor\u2019s decision for yourself\u00a0here<\/a>, but the biggest takeaway is that the ATF cannot enforce its rule against\u00a0anyone<\/em>, at least for the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vacatur is appropriate given the Court\u2019s conclusion that the ATF has exceeded its statutory authority. An illegitimate agency action is void ab initio and therefore cannot be remanded as there is nothing for the agency to justify. Defendants tacitly acknowledge this, noting that \u201cif vacatur is authorized under the APA, it is not warranted here in the event that Plaintiffs succeed on the merits of any procedural claim, because the agency can likely correct any such error on remand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, vacating the unlawful assertion of the agency\u2019s authority would be minimally disruptive because vacatur simply \u201cestablish[es] the status quo\u201d that existed for decades prior to the agency\u2019s issuance of the Final Rule last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defendants argue that any vacatur should only be applied to the parties before the Court while citing no binding authority in support. But such a remedy is more akin to an injunction that would prohibit the agencies from enforcing their unlawful Final Rule against only certain individuals. And indeed, \u201c[t]here are meaningful differences between an injunction, which is a \u2018drastic and extraordinary remedy,\u2019 and vacatur, which is \u2018a less drastic remedy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[A] vacatur does nothing but re-establish the status quo absent the unlawful agency action. Apart from the . . . statutory basis on which the court invalidated an agency action, vacatur neither compels nor restrains further agency decision-making.\u201d Thus, the Court applies the default remedy and VACATES the Final Rule on grounds that the agency acted beyond the scope of its legitimate statutory authority in promulgating it.So what happens next? DOJ will almost certainly appeal O\u2019Connor\u2019s decision to the Fifth Circuit, which has already taken a dim view of the ATF\u2019s ban on bump stocks and its rule on pistol braces. I\u2019d be shocked to see the appeals court reverse O\u2019Connor\u2019s ruling or even stay the order while the case is on appeal, but that request is still likely to come next week. In the meantime, enjoy kicking off your Independence Day weekend with a little more freedom than you had Friday morning, and raise a glass to the Second Amendment advocates who kicked the Biden administration\u2019s rear end in court\u2026 as well as a toast to Judge O\u2019Connor for seeing the ATF\u2019s rule for what it is: an unlawful abuse of the agency\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Biden\u2019s anti-gun agenda has taken another body blow, with a U.S. District Judge in Texas putting a halt to the ATF\u2019s rule treating unfinished frames and receivers as if they\u2019re firearms themselves. In a Friday decision, Judge Reed O\u2019Connor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1065,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/1065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}