More from the ruling -
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/fi...nDerStok_v_Garland_227_Opinion.pdf?1688171832
This case presents the question of whether the federal government may lawfully regulate partially manufactured firearm components, related firearm products, and other tools and materials in keeping with the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Because the Court concludes that the government cannot regulate those items without violating federal law, the Court holds that the government’s recently enacted Final Rule, Definition of “Frame or Receiver” and Identification of Firearms ... is unlawful agency action taken in excess of the ATF’s statutory jurisdiction. On this basis, the Court vacates (voids) the Final Rule.
... Congress delegated authority to administer and enforce the GCA to ... Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”)
... In 1978, ATF promulgated a rule interpreting the phrase “frame or receiver,” which the GCA does not define. The rule defined the “frame or receiver” of a firearm as “[t]hat part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.” ... That definition remained in place until last year.
In April 2022, ATF published the Final Rule changing ... the 1978 definition of “frame or receiver.” ATF split the phrase into two parts, assigning the term “frame” to handguns and the term “receiver” to any firearm other than a handgun, such as rifles and shotguns. But ATF did not stop there. Rather than merely updating the terminology, ATF decided to regulate partial frames and receivers. (Page 5)
Further, the Final Rule permits the ATF Director to consider extrinsic factors when determining if an object is a frame or receiver. Specifically, “[w]hen issuing a classification, the Director may consider any associated templates, jigs, molds, equipment, tools, instructions, guides, or marketing materials that are sold, distributed, or possessed with [or otherwise made available to the purchaser or recipient of] the item or kit.” The Final Rule also amends ATF’s definition of “firearm” to include weapon parts kits that are “designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive. (Page 6)
... i. Parts that may become receivers are not receivers.
Congress carefully defined its terms in the Gun Control Act. The primary definition of “firearm” in the GCA contains three parts: “any weapon (including a starter gun) which [1] will or [2] is designed to or [3] may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.”
... Congress created a secondary definition covering specific weapon parts: “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.” Notably, Congress did not cover all weapon parts—only frames and receivers. And only the frames and receivers “of any such weapon” that Congress described in its primary definition. Because Congress did not define “frame or receiver,” the words receive their ordinary meaning. Contrary to [ATF's] assertion, in an interpretive dispute over a statutory term’s meaning, the Court does not simply “leav[e] the precise definition of that term to the discretion and expertise of ATF. Nor is the Court bound by the agency’s definition of an unambiguous statutory term, even if the ATF has “long provided regulations defining . . . ‘frame or receiver.’” (Page 25)
... But the Final Rule’s amended definition of “frame or receiver” does not accord with the ordinary meaning of those terms and is therefore in conflict with the plain statutory language ... As this Court has previously discussed, the definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act does not cover all firearm parts. It covers specifically “the frame or receiver of any such weapon” that Congress defined as a firearm. And that which may become or may be converted to a functional receiver is not itself a receiver. Congress could have included firearm parts that “may readily be converted” to frames or receivers, as it did with “weapons” that “may readily be converted” to fire a projectile. But it omitted that language when talking about frames and receivers. “[W]hen Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” Likewise, when Congress uses a phrase in one part of a definition and excludes that phrase from another part of the very same definition, courts should give effect to Congress’s deliberate exclusion. (Page 27)
... To be a receiver “within the meaning of the statute” requires that the particular component possess all the attributes of a receiver as commonly understood (i.e., the component must “provide[] housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel”) at the point of evaluation, not “readily” in the near term. (Page 29)
... But “the best evidence of Congress’s intent is the statutory text.” And the text of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), read in context, indicates that when Congress sought to regulate parts of weapons, it did so meticulously. (Page 30)
... Congress could have described a firearm as “any combination of parts” that would produce a weapon that could fire a projectile ... Congress could have described a firearm as any part “designed” to be part of a weapon ... Congress could have described a firearm as a set of parts that “may be readily assembled” into a weapon ... But Congress did not regulate firearm parts as such, let alone aggregations of parts that are “designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” Accordingly, the Final Rule’s attempt to regulate weapon parts kits lacks statutory support. (Page 33)
... In sum, there is a legal distinction between a weapon parts kit, which may be an aggregation of partially manufactured parts not subject to the agency’s regulatory authority, and a “weapon” which “may readily be completed [or] assembled . . . to expel a projectile.” Defendants contend that drawing such a distinction will produce the absurd result whereby a person lawfully prohibited from possessing a firearm can obtain the necessary components and, given advances in technology, self-manufacture a firearm with relative ease and efficiency. Even if it is true that such an interpretation creates loopholes that as a policy matter should be avoided, it not the role of the judiciary to correct them. That is up to Congress. And until Congress enacts a different statute, the Court is bound to enforce the law as written.
Because the Final Rule purports to regulate both firearm components that are not yet a “frame or receiver” and aggregations of weapon parts not otherwise subject to its statutory authority, the Court holds that the ATF has acted in excess of its statutory jurisdiction by promulgating it. (Page 35)
Thus, the Court applies the default remedy and VACATES the Final Rule on grounds that the agency acted beyond the scope of its legitimate statutory authority in promulgating it.
SO ORDERED this 30th day of June, 2023
Reed O'Connor
, but did I miss something? How did this thread on 80% morph into braces
