A federal judge in Texas has officially blocked a government rule that expanded the definition of a firearm to include unfinished gun parts. The judge ruled that the regulation violates both the Second Amendment and basic constitutional rights to fair legal notice.
The decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas sides with two gun-rights groups, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Defense Distributed, in their lawsuit against the government (Defense Distributed v. Blanche).
With this ruling, the court issued a permanent order that protects Defense Distributed and all current and future SAF members from facing enforcement over the specific gun-building kits involved in the lawsuit.
The dispute centers on an April 2022 rule introduced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under the Biden administration. That rule changed federal definitions so that partially finished frames and receivers—the core pieces used to build a working gun—would be treated as actual firearms.
The court ruled that the ATF’s policy stepped over the line by infringing on people’s right to build their own firearms at home. The judge also found that the ATF’s rules were too unclear about when raw materials cross the line into becoming regulated gun parts.
In the official court opinion, the judge criticized the agency’s vague standards: “The decision of when a hunk of metal or plastic ‘may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver’ is left to the subjective determination of the ATF and does not provide fair notice to the reader about when a component becomes subject to enforcement.”
Leaders of the Second Amendment Foundation praised the court’s decision, calling the ATF’s rule far too confusing for regular gun owners to follow.
“This rule was such a mess that it not only violated the Second Amendment but was so terribly drafted that it managed to be ruled unconstitutionally vague,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Court rightly held that the Biden ATF’s rule not only sought to outright prohibit Second Amendment protected conduct but was written in such a vague and vaporous manner as to chill that protected conduct by making it impossible to even know what was legal and what wasn’t.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb pointed out that federal agencies cannot rewrite laws passed by lawmakers.
“It was obvious from the outset that the Biden ATF’s definition of a ‘firearm’ was intentionally vague and provided no clear guidance to the average law-abiding American as to what was actually legal,” Gottlieb said. “As it stood previously, the updated definition, in essence, made a law-abiding citizen a criminal for nothing more than owning a piece of plastic that could be converted into a firearm. That isn’t how it works. Congress set the definition and the ATF can’t unilaterally trump up a revised version to suit their political agenda. The ruling also affirms that you are indeed allowed make firearms in your own home without fear of prosecution.”
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