The National Rifle Association on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging the DOJ/ATF’s Final Rule redefining who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms.
The NRA, along with two individuals, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Specifically, Butler v. Garland argues that the rule, which arguably bans most private sales of firearms, violates the Administrative Procedures Act.
Along with the NRA, the individual plaintiffs are Don Butler and David Glidewell. Butler, from Talladega, Alabama, is an NRA member, firearms hobbyist and collector. Glidewell, from Ragland, Alabama, is also an NRA member, firearms hobbyist and collector, according to the complaint.
Randy Kozuch, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said the lawsuit is a follow-up on the promise made by NRA when the Final Rule was announced.
“The ATF’s Final Rule stands to turn countless upstanding and well-intending citizens into criminals for exercising their constitutional rights,” Kozuch said in an NRA-ILA news item. “When ATF released this Final Rule, NRA promised to use every means necessary to stop this egregious interpretation of the law. Now that the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Loper Bright, Cargill, and Rahimi make clear that the ATF does not have unfettered authority to arbitrarily restrict NRA members’ rights to buy and sell firearms, the NRA is fighting back.”
As the NRA pointed out in the complaint: “The Final Rule has already been held to violate the Administrative Procedure Act. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently held that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority by promulgating the Final Rule and preliminarily enjoined its application against certain states, membership organizations, and an individual.”
As NRA further argued in the complaint, the Final Rule was a devastating blow to America’s lawful gun owners.
“Absent immediate relief, the Final Rule threatens to make felons out of law-abiding citizens who would—but for the unlawful Final Rule—exercise their constitutionally and statutorily protected right to engage in private, non-commercial and unregulated transactions involving firearms,” the complaint stated. “But for the reasonable fear of being unlawfully subjected to administrative, civil and criminal proceedings for violations of the GCA as ‘administered’ by the Final Rule, plaintiffs and their members could and would engage in conduct protected by the Constitution and federal statutory enactments but made unlawful by the Final Rule.”
The NRA and the individual plaintiffs are requesting that the court issue a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction barring defendants from enforcing the Final Rule against Plaintiffs, their members, and those with whom Plaintiffs and their members engage in protected private transactions; issue an order under the Administrative Procedure Act holding unlawful and setting aside the Final Rule; and issue a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction barring defendants from enforcing the Final Rule.
