July 24, 2023
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation is cheering a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the case of VanDerStok v. Garland, challenging the authority of the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate items that are not firearms, as if they were firearms.
SAF had intervened in the case, opposing the ATF’s change in defining frames and receivers. The court today refused to stay portions of the rule SAF successfully challenged, pending appeal. Issues which SAF did not challenge when it intervened in the case were granted a stay. SAF and its partners in the intervention are represented by attorney Chad Flores.
According to the Fifth Circuit panel, “Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. “[V]acatur …reestablish[es] the status quo ante”…which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains, pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.
“The court issued a ruling which declined to stay our successful challenge during this appeal,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “As this case moves forward, we expect to again prevail on the portions of the Final Rule that we challenged. The court’s finding that ATF had not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits bodes well for SAF and its members.”
“We’re delighted the court ruled in favor of our challenges to the Biden administration’s overreach, and we will pursue this case to its ultimate conclusion,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.