Listen live: Supreme Court hears arguments challenging ATF’s ghost gun rule

Washington — The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate non-serialized firearms, so-called ghost guns, weighing for the second time in several months whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Tobacco went too far when it took unilateral action to curb gun violence.

The challengers, brought by a group of gun owners, gun rights groups and manufacturers, are seeking to invalidate regulations that seek to subject ghost guns to the same requirements as commercially manufactured firearms.

But the Biden administration has warned that dropping the rule would give criminals, minors and others who are not legally allowed to have guns access to kits that can be assembled into a functioning, untraceable firearm in less than 30 minutes.

The question in the case, known as Garland v. VanDerStok, is not whether Second Amendment rights were violated, but whether the ATF exceeded its authority when it issued the regulation in 2022. The rule clarified the definition of “firearm” in the Arms Act. Control Act of 1968 to include a gun parts kit that can be assembled into an operational firearm, and the incomplete frame of a pistol and the receiver of a rifle.

The measure is intended to tackle the increase in crimes involving ghost weapons, which can be made with 3D printers or with kits and parts available online. Because these firearms have no serial numbers or transfer records, it is difficult for law enforcement to trace them back to their purchasers, making them especially attractive to people who cannot legally purchase firearms or plan to use them in crimes.

But clarifying the Gun Control Act’s definition of “firearm” to include these kits will require manufacturers and sellers of ghost guns to be licensed, label their products with serial numbers, conduct background checks on potential buyers and maintain transfer records. commercial weapons manufacturers must do.

A group of 20 major cities told the Supreme Court in a filing that the rule appears to have been effective in reducing the use of ghost guns in their municipalities and across the country. In New York, for example, the number of recovered ghost guns fell last year for the first time in four years. In Baltimore, they fell in 2023 for the first time since 2019.

Gun owners, advocacy groups and equipment manufacturers sued the Biden administration shortly after it took effect, arguing that when Congress wrote the 1968 law, it did not give the ATF the power to define the definition of a firearm. change to include equipment. A federal district court judge invalidated the ordinance. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also struck down the regulation, ruling that only completed firearms, or complete frames or receivers, are covered by the Gun Control Act.

The Biden administration then asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, arguing that the rule merely ensures that ghost guns meet the same “simple and inexpensive administrative requirements” that apply to commercial sales of firearms.

The 5th Circuit’s decision, wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, “ignores the words Congress wrote and would effectively nullify the law’s careful regulatory plan by allowing anyone to anonymously purchase a kit online and receive a kit within minutes.” minutes to assemble a fully functional weapon – no background check, data, or serial number required.”

She also argued that the lower court’s interpretation of the law frustrates its intent by transforming the definition of firearm into an invitation to circumvent its requirements.

But the challengers said the ATF’s clarification is inconsistent with the plain text of the Gun Control Act and “risks upending the regulation of popular semiautomatic firearms.”

They told the Supreme Court in a petition that any change in the regulatory approach for privately manufactured firearms must come from Congress, not the ATF.

“The decisive fact in this case is the decision of Congress, in the GCA, to focus on the commercial firearms market rather than on the private manufacture of firearms for personal use. Accordingly, the GCA does not reach the items used in the private firearms manufacturing that ATF seeks to regulate,” said the gun owners, led by Jennifer VanDerStok of Texas.

The Supreme Court has already been asked to intervene in the legal dispute, but at an earlier stage of the process. In August 2023, the Supreme Court ruled agreed to allow the Biden administration to enforce the ghost gun rule until it decides on its legality, likely by the end of June 2025.

The Supreme Court was split 5-4 on halting the district court order striking down the measure, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal justices in the majority.

Roberts and Barrett’s earlier votes make them important justices to watch, although it does not mean they will vote to uphold the measure as the Supreme Court considers the merits of the case.

The Supreme Court will consider the ghost gun rule just months after that invalidated a separate measure that banned bump stocks, a firearm accessory that increases the rate of fire of a semi-automatic rifle to hundreds of rounds per minute.

In striking down the rule, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that the ATF exceeded its authority when it issued the ban in 2018 after a mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival, the deadliest in U.S. history.