The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision in VanDerStok v. Garland, overturning the ATF’s “frame or receiver” rule and marking another significant victory for 80 Percent Arms.
The court criticized the ATF for overstepping its regulatory authority, effectively accusing it of rewriting the law without proper legal basis. The court creatively used the “cakes that look like food” internet trend as an analogy to illustrate its point on gun regulation by drawing a parallel between a cake that looks like a hamburger, or like a gun, is not a hamburger or a gun. This comparison highlighted the ATF’s flawed approach, where regulations were applied not just to genuine frames and receivers, but also to items that merely resembled them.
Judge Oldham wrote an opinion supplementing the majority’s findings in order to explore additional problems with the Final Rule, where he says “The Final Rule is limitless… The GCA allows none of this.” Judge Kurt Engelhardt, also supporting the majority opinion stated, “The agency rule at issue here flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy.” He further clarified that the expansion of firearm regulation and the criminalization of actions that were previously legal are not sanctioned by Congress, rendering the proposed rule an unlawful agency action that goes against legislative intent.
The court firmly concludes that until Congress modifies the Gun Control Act, the ATF must adhere to the existing statutory limits. The Final Rule, according to the court, crosses those boundaries, resulting in the ATF essentially rewriting the law, a move that is not permissible, particularly when it leads to the broad imposition of criminal liability without legislative input.
Click the link to read the whole article: Statement on ATF’s Frame or Receiver Rule
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