By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Biden administration can’t seem to win in court, as a federal judge late Friday handed a devastating blow to the president and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by ruling the agency overstepped its authority by adopting a “final rule” that re-defined firearm components as functional firearms.
The case is known as VanDerStok v. Garland, and the Second Amendment Foundation was allowed to intervene in the case last December.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor handed down the decision, noting in his 38-page ruling that, “A part that has yet to be completed or converted to function as frame or receiver is not a frame or receiver. ATF’s declaration that a component is a ‘frame or receiver’ does not make it so if, at the time of evaluation, the component does not yet accord with the ordinary public meaning of those terms.”
Elsewhere in his ruling, Judge O’Connor wrote, “Because the Final Rule purports to regulate both firearm components that are not yet a ‘frame or receiver’ and aggregations of weapon parts not otherwise subject to its statutory authority, the Court holds that the ATF has acted in excess of its statutory jurisdiction by promulgating it.”
Further, Judge O’Connor refutes ATF’s argument that it has previously taken action against a firearm component, thus it has regulatory authority over firearm parts. But the judge observes, “If these administrative records show, as Defendants contend, that ATF has previously regulated components that are not yet frames or receivers but could readily be converted into such items, then the historical practice does nothing more than confirm that the agency has, perhaps in multiple specific instances over several decades, exceeded the lawful bounds of its statutory jurisdiction. That the agency may have historically acted ultra vires does not convince the Court it should be permitted to continue the practice.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb noted to Breitbart.com, “With this decision, the court has properly struck down ATF’s rule and ensured that it cannot enforce that which it never had the authority to publish in the first place.”
In a prepared statement, Gottlieb said, “We are delighted with Judge O’Connor’s ruling, and it certainly underscores why we intervened in this case. This decision amounts to another court blow to Joe Biden’s anti-gun agenda, which threatens the very Constitution he swore to uphold and defend when he took office.”
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut also weighed in.
“This case is one more example of the Biden administration’s ongoing effort to exceed its authority in an effort to place as many restrictions as possible on the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Kraut said. “We are pleased the court took this decisive action, and we will litigate this issue to finality, if and when, the government appeals.”
