The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Joe Biden’s Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s (ATF) effort to outlaw the largely used, traditionally legal, and unrestricted pistol stabilizing brace, possibly dealing it a fatal blow. The preliminary injunction only affects the parties named in the appeal and is in effect up until the Fifth Circuit considers the appeal of a district court ruling.
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a lawsuit to overturn the ruling just as it was about to go into force. The FPC sued on behalf of their membership, William Mock along with Christopher Lewis sued as the owners of pistol stabilizing braces, while Maxim Defense Industries LLC entered the suit as a producer of braces.
Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, as well as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton all filed lawsuits as this case developed. Along with the Texas-led lawsuit, the Firearms Regulation Accountability Coalition, Incorporated., vs. Merrick Garland, Attorney General, case is being spearheaded by West Virginia and North Dakota.
The actual injunction is not very substantial. It only applies to those who filed a lawsuit and reside in Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi, which are the states that make up the Fifth Circuit. For the ATF, it portends bad news. The requirement for obtaining an injunction is that the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable injury if one is denied and that they have a good chance of winning the case based on the merits.
The Paxton lawsuit, which was brought in a courtroom that strongly supports the Second Amendment, is likely to win at trial and the ATF will be defeated in its appeal.
This will effectively neutralize the ATF rule by the Fifth Circuit and produce additional cases across other federal districts. In the end, as the ATF is discovering with its ban on bump stocks, it is not possible to have a product that is legal in three states or more and illegal in a number of others. Therefore, the Supreme Court will need to intervene.
The ATF ultimately loses in this case. They have altered the definition of a rifle from “must be shot from the shoulder” to “we can label anything we do not like as a rifle and f*** you,” much like the bump barrel ban reclassified “automatic weapon” into “semi-automatic weapon that we do not like.”
Author: Steven Sinclaire