A three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided on Thursday against the ATF’s 80 percent frame rule, finding that the ATF overstepped its bounds in issuing it.
The 80 percent or partial frame rule is contained within ATF Final Rule 2021-05F, and makes clear the ATF’s position that partially completed pistol frames–commonly known as 80 percent frames–are “firearms.”
The ATF’s rule on frames took effect on August 24, 2022, and following public pushback, the ATF released a December 27, 2022, letter, reiterating that their rule does hold that “partially complete pistol frames” are “firearms.’ This opens the door for a background check requirement for certain gun parts and/or parts kits.
All three judges on the Fifth Circuit panel decided against the ATF’s rule.
The three judges, Kurt D. Engelhardt, Andrew S. Oldham, and Don Willet, were all appointed by Donald Trump. The case made its way to them on appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The judges seized on the the ATF’s act redefining partial frames as firearms, noting that in so doing the ATF went beyond Congress.
Engelhardt wrote the court’s opinion and noted:
The agency rule at issue here flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively-imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy. Because Congress has neither authorized the expansion of firearm regulation nor permitted the criminalization of previously lawful conduct, the proposed rule constitutes unlawful agency action, in direct contravention of the legislature’s will.
Oldham, concurring, pointed to what he saw as the ATF’s core blunder: “ATF’s foundational legal error is that it conflated two very different statutes: the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the National Firearms Act of 1934. Those two statutes give ATF very different powers to regulate very different types of weapons.”
Hellbound and Down 