FORT WORTH, Texas — On August 17 a United States district court struck down the ATF’s “Frame or Receiver” Final Rule, curtailing the Biden-era overstep and affirming the American tradition of home-built firearms protected under the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
Writing for the court in the case of Defense Distributed v. Blanche, Chief United States District Judge Reed O’Connor issued a 29-page opinion and order out of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth Division), permanently enjoining enforcement of the rule against the plaintiffs (see below for more details).
(It’s worth noting that this district court has been particularly inclined to uphold the Second Amendment, with recent rulings from other judges striking down the ATF’s “Engaged in the Business” rule in June, and striking down NFA requirements on untaxed firearms in August.)
History
At its core, the case addresses the ATF’s 2022 re-interpretation of the 1968 Gun Control Act’s definition of “frame or receiver” as related to a firearm. The hostile, Biden-era ATF published a 2022 Final Rule that not only dramatically changed but expanded the definitions, as the opinion notes, “Rather than merely updating the terminology, ATF decided to regulate partial frames and receivers.”
The result of the ATF’s actions meant that parts kits and unfinished receivers were now treated as firearms, adding significant administrative requirements for businesses and in some cases, criminalizing the act of making one’s own firearms.
In August of 2022, several plaintiffs, backed by gun rights group Firearms Policy Coalition, filed a lawsuit (originally known as VanDerStok v. Garland) citing both Second Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenges. (Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed intervened later.)
The case has a long and complicated procedural history, including an initial ruling in favor of the plaintiffs that was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in 2025 and remanded back to the district court.
Analysis
So, how did Judge O’Connor arrive at a different decision than the Supreme Court? He addresses what they did not, noting, “As a threshold matter, the Parties agree that the Supreme Court did not address any constitutional issues in Bondi. Thus the Court proceeds with Plaintiffs’ challenge.”
In a clever observation of the ATF’s Final Rule, Judge O’Connor decides that it is void for vagueness:
So, at some unknown point between an ‘unformed block of metal’ or ‘liquid polymer’ and a fully completed firearm ‘a forging, casting, printing, extrusion, unmachined body, or similar article’ becomes a ‘frame’ or ‘receiver.’
Judge O’Connor then addresses the as-applied Second Amendment challenge, noting that “the burden now shifts to Defendants to justify that the Final Rule does not ‘infringe the historical understanding of the codified right.'”
In this context he observes that “The Final Rule does not merely lack supporting analogues. It contradicts the actual historical tradition of personal gunsmithing.”
The opinion notes that the Final Rule employed means-end scrutiny, an interest-balancing approach disallowed by the 2022 Bruen decision, issued just months later, but “because Bruen was not yet the controlling law when the Final Rule was issued, the Court cannot find that Defendants failed to consider caselaw that was not yet considerable.”
Judge O’Connor observes that the rule’s specific element of unconstitutionality lays in creating barriers to access of parts that inhibit individuals from making and repairing their own firearms:
Thus, the Court cannot conclude that the Final Rule’s imposition of ambiguous and far-reaching regulations, which would restrict access to component parts thereby inhibiting home gunsmithing, comports with the Second Amendment.
Scope of Injunction
The court states that “Plaintiffs are entitled to permanent injunctive relief,” but notes that the plaintiffs did not prevail on their APA claims.
The injunction permanently enjoins (or prevents) the ATF from enforcing the rule against “Defense Distributed, SAF, or any of SAF’s current or future members with respect to Defense Distributed’s M1911 80% Frames and G80 Build Kit, Unfinished Receiver, and Grip Module.”
The Second Amendment community will watch closely to see if the Blanche DOJ appeals this decision within the allotted 60-day window.
