The United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Tuesday the temporarily reinstate a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives policy on "ghost guns" pending a challenge to the regulation in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled for September 7th.
"Ghost guns are kits that a user can buy online to assemble a fully functional firearm. They have no serial numbers, do not require background checks and provide no transfer records for easy traceability. Critics say they are attractive to people who are legally prohibited from buying firearms," CNN's Ariane de Vogue reports.
"The rule does not prohibit the sale or possession of any ghost gun kit, nor does it block an individual from purchasing such a kit," deVogue explains. "Instead, it requires compliance with federal laws that impose conditions on the commercial sale of firearms. Those conditions include requirements that commercial manufacturers and sellers mark products with serial numbers and keep records to allow law enforcement to trace firearms used in crimes."
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SCOTUSBLOG's Amy Howe writes that "the ATF issued the rule at the center of the dispute in 2022 to make clear that federal laws governing the sale of firearms – requiring, for example, background checks for purchases and imposing recordkeeping obligations – apply to 'ghost guns,' firearms without serial numbers that virtually anyone can assemble with parts that they purchase, often in a kit."
After US District Court Judge Reid O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas sided with gun manufacturers and struck down the ban on June 27th, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar petitioned the High Court on July 30th, arguing that O'Connor was "irreparably harming the public and the government by reopening the floodgates to the tide of untraceable ghost guns flowing into our Nation's communities," Howe recalls.
"The 5th Circuit agreed to fast-track the government's appeal but rejected the government’s plea to put O'Connor's ruling on hold, although it did limit his ruling to the parts of the rule that the manufacturers and sellers had specifically challenged," Howe continues.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined liberal Associate Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in the majority. Conversely, Howe notes, conservative Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas "indicated that they would have rejected the government’s request and allowed O'Connor's order to remain in place. They did not explain the reasons for their votes."
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Howe's complete analysis continues at this link. de Vogue's article is here.