U.S. Supreme Court is the New GhostBusters

[gun sane]

They went 7-2 for Biden's regulations against "buy build shoot" kits.

Biden-era 'ghost gun' regulation upheld in Supreme Court opinion | Fox News

[DraxTheDad]

This is a bit ridiculous and not a good sign for our 2nd amendment rights.  Building guns has been common since the founding of the country and now we are basically losing this.  Fortunately I have many 80% receivers that need to be finished because I don't know if I'll be able to get more later.   I have enough to build a new AR15 and AR10 for each member of my family, so I should be good for a while.

[Chucktshoes]

Good thread on Twitter breaking down the big takeaways. It’s isn’t the sky is falling moment that it could be, and is absolutely open to revisiting on other grounds. 
 

 

And for those that don’t use Twitter, here’s a copy. 
 

My summary on the Vanderstok Ruling:

Bad Things:
- All-in-one kits need serial numbers, background checks

- Polymer 80 frames (and things as easy to complete as them) need serial numbers, background checks

- ATF retains their new, rule-endorsed ability to come up with arbitrary decisions about what is and isn't a firearm (this wasn't really challenged by plaintiffs)

Good Things:
- This has no bearing on your ability to make guns yourself. You don't have to put serial numbers on your stuff. "Ghost guns" are not banned.

- AR15 80s are unaffected (at least for now)

- Flats, blanks, tubes, forgings, etc are all unaffected

- Court does not endorse the "8 hours in a machine shop" test, instead pointing to "1 hour, unskilled, with power tools" as being an example that's clearly "readily converted".

It's certainly not a good ruling, has many potential bad implications, gives the ATF a lot of leeway, but it's not some doomsday situation, and it definitely doesn't ban making your own guns.

Importantly, this case wasn't a 2A challenge, and didn't really delve into the particularity of "readily" - particular configurations of "80%" wasn't before the court, just the concept as a whole was. And the court says that unfinished weapons are weapons, using (among other examples) disassembled guns to illustrate their point.

This wasn't ever a fine-toothed or multi-faceted challenge to the rule or its applications. The plaintiffs opted for a very surface-level, all-or-nothing challenge and struck out. Which sucks, especially since P80 has already folded up while the case dragged through he courts.

The more awful part of the whole thing is that ATF bestowed itself a very serious amount of power in this rule - the ability to make arbitrary decisions about what "readily" means based on 4th dimensional factors. Jigs or templates that might not exist yet will, in the future, change something from being a lump of material into being a firearm.

This is ripe for abuse, and shouldn't be a power that ATF has. However, this particular aspect was not directly challenged in this case, so it's not as though the court has endorsed it.

Congress should require the ATF to submit, through the rulemaking process, every single determination and "opinion" that they wish to enforce. It's a serious problem that the ATF currently gets away with using "opinions" (sometimes even unpublished ones that nobody but them knows about) to twist the law to their will.

This rule seriously boosts their ability to do that.

[Grayfox54]

Doesn't surprise me a bit. SCOTUS is just following the law. GCA 68 requires a serial number on all firearm receivers. An 80% receiver is still a receiver and is sold as such. Even if it isn't completely finished, there was never any doubt as to what it is.  I've often wondered how they got away with selling them. 

You can still build your own gun. You just have to transfer the serial numbered receiver through a FFL.  

[Omega]

Next they will say you need a serial number on a 3d 2A project.

[srszczer]

Predicting a lot of FTATF## or FSCOTUS## serial numbers then.