Last week, the Supreme Court ordered two Internet firearms sellers to comply with the ATF’s controversial rule for firearms parts which are said to be untraceable because they lack serial numbers. That ruling came after the justices ruled 5-4 in August to allow the Biden administration to reinstate its controversial rule while a legal challenge worked its way through the federal appeals court.
Alan Gottleib, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, tells AFN it was disappointing when the Supreme Court removed the injunction and allowed enforcement of the ATF regulation before the legal case is finally heard.
"Which by the way, when it is finally heard, I believe that we're going to win again,” he says.
The most recent ruling came after the Biden administration was up in arms this summer over a federal judge, Reed O’Connor. His ruling in June, which barred the ATF from enforcing its rule, was appealed by the U.S. solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar. She ominously predicted Judge O’Connor was “irreparably harming” the public by flooding the country with untraceable firearms.
Gottlieb, however, tells AFN the term “ghost gun” is a “made-up term” by opponents of our Second Amendment rights.
“What they're trying to refer to is a firearm that you make yourself,” he stresses.
On a firearms website, for example, customers can legally buy a parts kits for an AR-15 rifle known as the “upper.” The rifle is incomplete, however, without the “lower” assembly which is manufactured with a mandatory serial number.
"I don't disagree with the government trying to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals,” Gottlieb says. “But this regulation goes much further and hurts the ability of law-abiding citizens to make their own firearms, which is protected by the Second Amendment."
