Original article can be found here.
The Department of Justice has filed a notice of appeal seeking to reverse a Texas district court judgment that vacated the ATF’s Biden-era firearms-dealer definition rule. That judgment was a Gun Owners of America victory. It blocked the expanded “engaged in the business” federal firearms license mandate. The appeal puts that win back before a federal appeals court.
The ATF rule redefined who is a firearms dealer. “Engaged in the business” is the statutory hook that decides who must obtain an FFL. The Biden-era final rule expanded that definition and, with it, the class of Americans the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could treat as dealers. A Texas district court vacated the rule. Gun Owners of America took the fight there and won.
Vacatur is not a suggestion. The district court set the dealer-definition rule aside. The Justice Department now asks an appellate court to restore it. A notice of appeal is the government’s formal step. It does not rewrite the Second Amendment, and it does not enact a new statute. It is a bid to revive an ATF mandate a trial court has already thrown out.
An FFL is a federal license. It brings federal recordkeeping, federal inspection, and federal criminal liability. Expanding who must hold one is expanding federal control over lawful gun owners who sell, trade, or thin a collection. The ATF labeled that expansion a dealer definition. GOA treated it as a licensing dragnet and beat it in district court. The Department of Justice wants the dragnet back.
Federal agencies do not sit above the Constitution. The Second Amendment is the right of the people, not a privilege ATF may condition on a new reading of “engaged in the business.” Congress writes the federal dealer statute. ATF does not get a blank check to enlarge it by final rule. The Texas judgment that vacated this rule enforced that hierarchy. The appeal is the government’s attempt to invert it.
Gun Owners of America now has to defend a judgment it already won. The United States will argue for reversal. The federal appeals court will decide whether the Texas judgment stands. The GOA victory that blocked the expanded FFL mandate is the judgment the Justice Department is attacking—not a policy paper and not a press release.
Officers of the United States swear an oath to the Constitution. They do not swear an oath to ATF rulemakings. A vacated firearms-dealer definition is not the law of the land. The Department of Justice can notice an appeal. It cannot substitute a bureau’s dealer mandate for the right to keep and bear arms. The next move belongs to the federal appeals court.
References
- https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/doj-appeals-goa-win-in-case-challenging-bidens-engaged-in-the-business-final-rule/
- https://foundation.gunowners.org/wp-content/uploads/EIB-NOA.pdf
- https://pew.report/sources/ttag/doj-appeals-goa-win-in-case-challenging-bidens-engaged-in-the-business-final-rule/
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