Gun owners are the losers, and the federal government, which was alleged to be pro-gun now, is the winner in a Texas-based case challenging the federal law making it illegal to sell or purchase handguns across interstate lines.
On September 30, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas upheld the unconstitutional provision that prevents lawful Americans from practicing their Second Amendment rights in a Firearms Policy Coalition-backed challenge known as Elite Precision Customs v. ATF.
“The plain text of the Second Amendment does not cover the conduct regulated by the Sale Restrictions,” District Judge Mark Pittman wrote in the ruling. “When a condition on sale incurs a slight delay on possession and increased cost as here, the Second Amendment is not implicated. The Sale Restrictions do not regulate the right to keep and bear arms—only the ability to purchase them in specific and narrow circumstances, and thus ultimately the manner in which they can be acquired.”
The ruling concluded: “In short, the Court holds that the Sale Restrictions do not function as a de facto prohibition on possession but rather a reasonable commercial restriction enacted by Congress. Consequently, the Court holds that the Sale Restrictions do not violate the Second Amendment. Because the laws do not implicate the Second Amendment at step one, the Court need not undergo the historical analysis warranted by step two of the Bruen test.”
For its part, FPC leaders were incensed over the ruling, calling it “judicial abdication” and an “erroneous opinion.”
“Despite the clear mandates of the Supreme Court’s binding Bruen opinion, the Trump Administration shamefully defended this unconstitutional regulatory scheme, adopting the rhetoric of gun control extremists by arguing that this fundamental, enumerated right can be dismissed as merely subject to ‘reasonable commercial restrictions’ and a ‘minimal burden on the right to acquire arms,’” FPC wrote in a press release announcing the ruling. “The district court—wrongly—agreed with the government.”
FPC President Brandon Combs took the court to task over the ruling and promised that his organization would file an appeal.
“This ruling is nothing short of judicial abdication,” Combs said. “The court chose to ignore the clear mandate of Bruen and instead applied the very sort of test the Supreme Court rejected three years ago. The right to keep arms inherently includes the right to acquire them, and federal regulations that prohibit peaceable Americans from purchasing handguns across state lines are patently unconstitutional.
“We reject the fiction that infringing upon a fundamental, enumerated right is merely a ‘modest inconvenience’ that can be deferred to Congress. We will appeal this horrifically flawed decision to the Fifth Circuit.”