SCOTUS Upholds Biden-Era Regulation of “Ghost Guns” in 7-2 Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled at the end of March that a Biden-era rule regulating so-called “ghost guns” may stand, at least in certain cases. Gun control groups hailed the recent ruling in Bondi v. Vanderstock, but it may not apply to all instances of make-your-own firearms, gun rights advocates hope.

Ghost guns are firearms without serial numbers that can be assembled using parts printed on a 3D printer or purchased online or by mail without a background check.

While the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has argued that the rules are necessary to address an “urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis” created by the “exponential” increase in these weapons, gun owners and manufacturers challenged the law, suggesting that it exceeds the agency’s authority under the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Under this law, Congress imposed “licensing, background-check, record keeping, and serialization requirements on persons engaged in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms.”

According to Supreme Court documents for this case, this law defines a “firearm” as “any weapon…which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,” as well as “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”

In 2022, the ATF adopted a rule which expanded this definition to include products “that can readily be converted into an operational firearm or a functional frame or receiver.”

The Court’s 7-2 ruling finds that, broadly speaking, that the ATF may proceed with enforcing this rule as written.

The Justices did, however, leave open the possibility that this rule could be challenged in the future with respect to its applicability to certain parts kits, as they declined to specify exactly where they see the line being drawn between kits that qualify as weapons and those that do not.

Dissenting from the majority were Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito.

While Justice Thomas argued that the majority opinion sought to rewrite the law giving the ATF rule making authority over guns, Justice Alito’s concerns were rooted in the possibility that the Court had applied the wrong legal test in rendering its decision.

[RELATED: SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments in Challenge to “Ghost Gun” Regulations]

Approved in response to concerns over criminals’ ability to obtain untraceable guns by mail, the GCA authorizes the ATF to regulate the sale of these weapons.

The majority argues in their opinion, however, that there have been “profound” changes to how guns are made and sold in the years since the GCA was first passed, suggesting that lawmakers at the time could not have imagined that it would one day be possible for an individual to “make firearms practically or reliably on their own.”

In 2022, the ATF adopted an updated set of rules specifically designed to bring “ghost guns” under the umbrella of the regulations they had promulgated in accordance with this rule.

The plaintiffs in this case were described by the Justices as pursuing a ‘facial’ pre-enforcement challenge to the agency’s authority to regulate any weapon parts kits or unfinished frames or receivers,” as opposed to any one weapons parts kit in particular.

The Court goes on to explain that it disagrees with the 5th Circuit’s ruling against the validity of these regulations because “to [their] eyes, at least some kits will satisfy both” requirements outlined in the GCA’s definition of a weapon.

In addition to debates about the technology involved in gun assembly kits, the Justices also carefully parsed the meaning of word in the language within GCA itself.

Much of the majority’s analysis rests on a particular understanding of an “artifact noun,” defined as “a word for a thing created by humans.”

The Justices argue that artifact nouns are typically “characterized by an intended function,” suggesting that “everyday speakers sometimes use artifact nouns to refer to unfinished objects — at least when their intended function is clear.”

The opinion then goes on to point out that Congress specifically included things that are capable of being “readily converted” into weapons in their statutory definition. It is on this basis that the Justices suggest that weapons parts kits can reasonably be included as well, since some kits can be converted in a short period of time with little “effort, expertise, or specialized tools.”

It is specifically noted in the opinion that just because the Justices feel some weapons parts kits, or “ghost guns,” would qualify weapons under the law, it doesn’t mean that all would. They do not delve into this question further, however, leaving it up to potential future cases to more narrowly define these boundaries.

Similar reasoning is laid out with respect to the ATF’s authority under the GCA to regulate unfinished frames and receivers.

Just as with respect to the weapons themselves, the Justices declined to make more specific delineations between which unfinished frames and receivers are able to be regulated by the ATF and which are not.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that while serial number and background check requirements are not new, attempts from manufacturers to “circumvent the [GCA’s] requirements by selling easy-to-assemble firearm kits and frames, which they claim fall outside the statute’s scope,” are.

“The Gun Control Act does not tolerate such evasion,” Sotomayor said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh also issued a concurring opinion, focusing primarily on the potential ramifications of leaving certain details ambiguous when it comes to enforcement of the GCA and the ATF’s rules.

Kavanaugh highlights that violations of the licensing, record keeping, and serialization requirements can only be penalized if they are willful, indicating that this “should help prevent the Government from unfairly penalizing an individual who is not aware that his conduct violates the law.”

On the other hand, Kavanaugh explains that background check violations can be penalized if they are committed knowingly, a much lower standard that only requires that the alleged offender knows about the “facts that constitute the offense.”

That said, he highlights how the Government indicated during oral argument that they would be “likely” to decline to “charge someone” for a background check violation in the “kind of situation” where a person is not aware that they were violating the law.

Should the government attempt to pursue such a charge despite these assertions, Kavanaugh indicates that the accused could potentially “have a due process argument based on lack of fair notice.”

[RELATED: “Ghost Guns” Coming Soon to SCOTUS]

Thomas’ dissent takes a dramatically different view of the case, suggesting that the Court “oblige[d]” the Government’s request to “rewrite statutory text,” doing so “based on a series of errors regarding both the standard of review and the interpretation of the statute.”

Based on his understanding, the ordinary meanings of “frame or receiver,” as well as “weapon,” do not lend themselves to encompass weapons parts kits, which he identifies as “unfinished” and “inoperable.”

He then argues that the majority errs in looking toward the “colloquial usage” of these terms, as the Court has previous “expressly ‘presumed’ that Congress does not ‘draft its laws’ with the informality of ‘casual conversation.'”

Thomas also criticizes the majority’s “approach” to ruling in this case, taking issue with their decision to “[analyze] the challenge as a facial attack,” where “regulatory definitions are valid so long as they cover ‘at least some weapon parts kits.'”

“This approach seems plainly inapt in a challenge to a regulatory definition,” Thomas said, explaining that “it is difficult to understand how an agency would ever promulgate an invalid definition” under this framework.

“No matter how far the agency expands its regulatory definition, the statutory definition inevitably will capture at least some of it,” he said.

Alito’s dissent takes a markedly less adversarial view of the case while still making his opposition to the majority clear. In his opinion, Alito explains that he would agree with the majority’s conclusions if not for what he believes to be an improper application of a certain legal test.

Under what is known as the Salerno test, Alito explains that the Court believes when a law is challenged as unconstitutional, there needs to be a measure of “respect for the lawmaking authority of the legislative body that enacted the law in question.”

In light of this, Alito explains how the Court has said a law “should not be held to be entirely unenforceable just because it would be unconstitutional to apply it in just a few situations.”

According to Alito, this standard is not necessarily proper when applied to an agency rule.

“This threat to legislative authority is not present when a regulation is challenged,” Alito explained, suggesting that applying Salerno to agency rules “may have far-reaching consequences.”

“Thus, this extension of Salerno would represent a huge boon for the administrative state,” he said.

Alito explains in closing that he would have preferred to see the parties in this case brief the Salerno issue or to have vacated the judgement and remanded it to the lower courts so that the issue could first be addressed by the Court of Appeals.

Click Here to Read All Opinions in This Case