Following outcry from gun rights groups and a motion from the Department of Justice, a Louisiana District Court Judge vacated an October 7 judgment requiring gun rights groups to disclose their membership lists.
The October 14 order, issued by Judge Robert B. Summerhays, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette Division, vacates the October 7 judgment in its entirety in the case of Reese v. ATF.
We chronicled the events leading up to this motion in our reporting here.
In his one-page order, Judge Summerhays writes:
Upon consideration of the joint motion to alter or amend the judgment, it is hereby ordered that the judgment of this Court issued on October 7, 2025, is vacated.
The order also indicates that:
The Court will set a telephone conference at its earliest opportunity to: (1) set a hearing on the Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment, and (2) set a briefing schedule, if necessary.
The Second Amendment community vociferously criticized a previous motion in which the DOJ claimed it couldn’t comply with a court order if it didn’t know each individual defendant, stating:
Defendants cannot comply with a judgment if they do not know to whom the judgment applies. Here, Defendants do not know the identity of any members of the organizational plaintiffs except for the three individual plaintiffs, and they lack the means to identify other members.
This left open the door for the court to interpret a need to demand gun rights groups’ membership lists, which it mandated on its October 7 ruling.
Only after significant outcry from both the Second Amendment community at large, as well as strong statements from gun rights groups about the constitutionality of the measure, did the DOJ publicly retract its position by submitting a motion to change the judgment on October 10.
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, jousted with the public on her X account, where some excoriated the DOJ’s actions as insincere, while others shared positive thoughts and encouragement.
Ms. Dhillon, in her official capacity with the DOJ, has brought numerous pro-Second Amendment actions, but has also been criticized for appearing to defend the often lackluster performance of the Pam Bondi DOJ on many other 2A actions, which we’ve catalogued here.
