Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office has joined a 27-state coalition of attorneys general asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in the Biden-Harris administration’s “Frame or Receiver” firearms rule.
“I will continue to protect Louisianans from the Biden-Harris administration’s relentless and unlawful attempts to strip away our Second Amendment rights,” Murrill said in a media release.
The rule, issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2022, broadened its interpretation of “firearm” — which now includes certain weapon parts kits that may be readily converted into firearms, as well as certain partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frames or receivers.
“Congress has not outlawed weapons parts kits, stabilizing braces, or bump stocks,” the brief states. “Nor has it dubbed every person handling a gun a firearms dealer. ATF can’t take these actions in Congress’s place.”
In November 2023, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down the rule because ATF was making laws instead of doing its real job — enforcing the laws passed by Congress — the rule “flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy.”
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey co-led the coalition.
“Here again is an example of how the Biden administration uses bureaucratic agencies, this time the ATF, to act as legislators instead of enforcing the laws Congress passed,” Morrisey said. “This exceeds the limits of what this agency could do, all to advance this administration’s anti-Second Amendment agenda.”
Louisiana is one of many states including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming that joined the West Virginia- and Montana-led brief.
Earlier this month, attorneys for Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, which is styled Garland v. VanDerStok.
FPC President Brandon Combs explained why the rule cannot survive scrutiny and must fail.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris used the ATF as a legislative body and weapon to achieve policy objectives through unlawful rule-making that they could not achieve through constitutional means,” Combs said in a statement. “Every step of the way, courts in our case have held that ATF’s ‘Frame or Receiver’ Rule exceeded the limits of the agency’s authority and definitions found in the statutes enacted by Congress.
“And rightly so. Americans have long enjoyed a constitutionally protected right to craft their own firearms for lawful purposes and we look forward to further securing that right in this case.”
FPC Action Council President Cody J. Wisniewski said the ATF ‘Frame or Receiver’ Rule is “nothing less than an executive branch power grab to impose the Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-Second Amendment agenda on millions of peaceable people.”
“We look forward to putting ATF in its place and an end to this unlawful regulation,” said Wisniewski, who also is counsel for the FPC plaintiffs.
Oral arguments are scheduled for October 8.