Supreme Court Upholds ATF's Restrictions on 'Ghost Guns'

"The [Gun Control Act] reaches, and permits ATF to regulate, at least some 'partially complete' frames or receivers," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a 7-2 ruling upholding a Biden-era regulation targeting internet weapon parts kits.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the federal government's efforts to combat a flood of untraceable "ghost guns" assembled from internet-ordered firearm kits, rejecting arguments that the assemble-yourself firearms are not subject to a federal gun control law.

In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that struck down down a 2022 rule subjecting the sale of firearms kits to the same tracking and background checks as conventional guns. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found the rule unlawful on the grounds that the 1968 Gun Control Act covers only ready-made firearms—or a finished "frame or receiver" of such a weapon—not unassembled parts kits.

Gorsuch's opinion for the court rejected that narrow reading of the law and of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' statutory authority.

"The GCA reaches, and permits ATF to regulate, at least some 'partially complete' frames or receivers," he wrote, adding that gun rights advocates had failed to prove that the bureau's regulation was facially inconsistent with the law.

The court's decision spurred separate dissents from Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas.

"The Court decides this case on a ground that was not raised or decided below and that was not the focus of the briefing or argument in this Court," Alito wrote, referring to the "extreme" example Gorsuch used to show how a nearly finished receiver should be subject to the Gun Control Act.

Thomas, meanwhile, objected to the court's reading of the Gun Control Act as covering partially complete frames or receivers.

"The statutory terms 'frame' and 'receiver' do not cover the unfinished frames and receivers contained in weapon-parts kits, and weapon-parts kits themselves do not meet the statutory definition of 'firearm,'" Thomas wrote. "That should end the case."

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote concurring opinions.

Sotomayor wrote that "some manufacturers have sought to circumvent the Act's requirements by selling easy-to-assemble firearm kits and frames, which they claim fall outside the statute's scope."

But "ATF's rule simply confirms what was already clear: The Gun Control Act does not tolerate such evasion," she added.

Kavanaugh wrote that the Gun Control Act penalizes only those who "willfully" violate the law's licensing, recordkeeping or serialization requirements.

"Therefore, with respect to ATF's rule, the 'willfulness' requirement should help prevent the Government from unfairly penalizing an individual who is not aware that his conduct violates the law," Kavanaugh wrote.

Jackson wrote that the dispositive issue is whether the ATF exceeded its statutory authority with the rule, which she added the agency did not.

"Proper excess-of-authority review must focus on actual statutory boundaries, not on whether the agency's discretionary choices overlap precisely with what we, as unelected judges, would have done if we were standing in the agency's shoes," Jackson wrote. "And where, as here, the statute's boundaries do not foreclose the agency's action, the excess-of-authority claim should meet its end."

Under the Biden-era rule from the ATF, online firearm kit makers are subject to the same requirements as other gun sellers: namely, they must have a federal license, conduct background checks for customers, maintain sales records, and include serial numbers on their products.

The ATF has said the rule is necessary to address an "explosion" of crimes using these unserialized weapons. Between 2016 and 2021, the government says it submitted more than 45,000 ghost guns to ATF for tracing, with a success rate of less than 1%.

The challenge to the rule came from Jennifer VanDerStok, Michael Andren and a group of weapons parts manufacturers, one of whom marketed a kit for a Glock-variant semiautomatic pistol that could be built in about 20 minutes, according to the government.

The gun owners and manufacturers said the law makes clear that only "functional" frames or receivers should be regulated as such. They stated that the Gun Control Act applies to items that can "readily be converted" to firearms, but does not include such expansive language for the "frame or receiver" of a firearm.

The court's decision comes less than a year after the Supreme Court held that the ATF did, in fact, exceed its statutory authority in banning the sale of bump stocks, a type of firearm accessory that uses the recoil of a weapon to simulate automatic fire. That rule was adopted by the ATF during the first Trump administration in response to the deadly mass shooting at a Las Vegas music concert.

The court signaled that it was more receptive to the agency's "ghost gun" rule during oral arguments in October, with several conservative justices appearing sympathetic to the government—a stark contrast to the grilling the government's lawyer received in the bump stock case the previous term.

Wednesday's decision came in Bondi v. Vanderstok, No. 23-852.

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