GIFFORDS Applauds SCOTUS Decision to Keep Ghost Gun Rule in Effect During Legal Proceedings

Washington DC — Today, the US Supreme Court granted the Department of Justice’s request for a stay that will allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to enforce its 2022 ghost gun rule while litigation challenging the rule progresses.

GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety submitted an amicus brief in support of ATF’s rule. 

“As a gun owner, I fully support ATF’s rule to regulate ghost guns. ATF’s requirements are not burdensome and do not significantly impact at-home firearm builds. These requirements are critical and common sense, and will reduce gun violence by keeping guns out of the hands of people who legally should not have them. ATF is simply doing its job, and to do that this rule must stay in effect.”

“We applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to stay the lower court’s ruling and allow ATF to continue to enforce its critical rule on ghost guns. We call on the Fifth Circuit to do the right thing and keep this vital rule intact. Ghost guns pose an increasingly severe threat to public safety, and one we know how to address: by closing the loophole that has allowed these guns to be sold without any regulation. The challenged rule simply requires that ghost gun kits are regulated like the guns that they are. It will save lives.”

During the presidential transition, GIFFORDS called on the incoming Biden administration to close the federal loophole that allowed untraceable firearms to proliferate. Within his first months in office, President Biden did just that, announcing that his administration would initiate a rulemaking process to define ghost gun parts as guns. During the public commenting process, GIFFORDS supported the rule directly and drove thousands of supportive public comments. After the rule was promulgated and challenged by the ghost gun industry, GIFFORDS Gun Owners For Safety, represented by Jones Day, submitted an amicus brief explaining the rule’s modest impact on law-abiding gun owners and massive impact on illegal gun trafficking.

GIFFORDS has led the fight against ghost guns. When the threat was first emerging, GIFFORDS Law Center partnered with pro bono counsel Arnold & Porter to call on internet service providers that hosted the websites selling these guns to take them down. While some web-based companies have made it clear that the sale of gun parts is prohibited under their terms of service, others have continued to host sales of these products, and in-person ghost guns sales have continued at gun shows.

GIFFORDS has advocated for ghost gun laws at the state level and helped to pass ghost gun laws across the country, including in California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.

GIFFORDS is also litigating the issue. Alongside then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra of California and the parents of Dominic Blackwell and Gracie Anne Muehlberger, who were killed by a shooter armed with a ghost gun at Saugus High School in 2019, Giffords sued ATF, arguing that the loophole exempting ghost gun parts from federal gun laws was arbitrary and capricious, and supported American cities by filing an amicus brief in their own lawsuit against ATF. 

GIFFORDS also took the fight to the ghost gun companies themselves, bringing a lawsuit with the San Francisco District Attorney against retailers engaged in egregious—and profitable—practices that ultimately harm their consumers and our communities. California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined the effort, in which we partnered with pro bono counsel at Keker, Van Nest & Peters.

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