ATF and pistol braces ?

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Has ruled that the ban exceeded the authority of the ATF and remanded it back to District Court.

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/fi...0919131/Mock_v_Garland_Opinion.pdf?1690919131

For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the order denying a prelim-
inary injunction and REMAND with instruction to consider that motion
expeditiously. To ensure relative stability, we MAINTAIN the preliminary
injunction pending appeal that the motions panel issued on May 23, 2023, as
clarified by this merits panel on May 26, 2023.63 This court’s injunction will
expire 60 days from the date of this decision, or once the district court rules
on a preliminary injunction, whichever occurs first. We direct the district
court to rule within 60 days.
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So we might know sooner rather than later.

Throughout the ruling they comment a bit about how imperfect and confusing ATF rulings, procedures and process are.

Under the Final Rule, it is nigh impossible for a regular citizen to
determine what constitutes a braced pistol, and outside of the sixty contem-
poraneous adjudications that the ATF released, whether a specified braced
pistol requires NFA registration.53 Various AR pistols without a recognizable
“brace” may fall into the strictures of the Final Rule.54 Such an owner may
not be on notice that his firearm is subject to criminal penalties without
registration.

Nor does the ATF bother to clarify the matter.
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But whatever we learn from this case will be valid only in the 5th Circuit jurisdiction.
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Not exactly. It was remanded to the District Court which is only a small portion of the 5th's Circuit. However a District Court can issue a national injunction which can then go to the appeals court or even the SCOTUS. It turns into a game of hot potato that can go for a while.
 
There are now reported cases of the ATF violating court injunctions and confiscating braced pistols and FRTs. Hopefully, this will lead to contempt charges or some other legal smackdown, but until then, be careful and ready to record any interactions with ATF/DOJ agents (if they are willing to violate court orders, filing false reports about interviews wouldn't be a stretch...)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29CxsoUwsFg
 
Is there now a nationwide injunction?
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No. The injunction only applies to the named parties (as stupid as that sounds).

So, 2 people that live nextdoor to each other, both have identical braced pistols, one is a member of FPC and the other is not. One is a felon in possession of an unregistered SBR and the other is legal.

There is no way that stands up long term. Equal protection under the law or some such has to come into play….right???????
 
One is a felon in possession of an unregistered SBR and the other is legal.
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When discussing the fine points of laws, particularly stupid laws (and ATF rulings are regulations, NOT law) it is important to be clear in the terms used.

One is not a felon, until convicted of a felony. A person might well be in criminal violation of the law (or just the ruling), but until they are arrested, charged, tried, and convicted, they are not felons.
 
The district court in Mock v. Garland voided the rule.

As the Plaintiff noted in its brief in support of SJ

Furthermore, there is a such a radical discrepancy between the Proposed Rule’s worksheet based system and the Final Rule’s indeterminate test that the public (including Plaintiffs) were not given adequate notice or the ability to comment on the substance of the Final Rule. The Fifth Circuit correctly held that “because the Final Rule bears almost no resemblance in manner or kind to the Proposed Rule, the Final Rule fails the logical-outgrowth test and violates the APA.” Mock, 75 F.4th at 578. In short:

Nothing in the Proposed Rule put the public on notice that the Worksheet would be replaced with a six-factor test based on almost entirely subjective criteria. Nor was the public, which criticized the subjective nature of the purportedly objective criteria of Worksheet 4999 and its overbreadth, see, e.g., Final Rule at 6513–14, 6521–22, 6527, 6529–30, put on notice that not only would the ATF change the criteria, but it also would make the criteria so expansive as to subject an estimated 99% of stabilizing braces on the market to enhanced regulations and increase the economic effect of the Rule by over $100 million.
Id. at 583–84 (footnote omitted).
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The Court's opinion and order: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66774568/110/mock-v-garland/
 
Well, that's great. A lot of people can now get out their snorkels and do a little diving in the areas where they had boating accidents after the rule was adopted.

This is a nice break for people who like to defend their homes with long-barreled pistols (LBP's). Of course, the frequency of school shootings will skyrocket, and sea levels will rise at least a foot.

I'm looking around trying to get a feel for the Fifth Circuit's respect for the Constitution.

I can't imagine any basis for ordering a stay pending appeal.
 
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I don’t like the basis of that ruling. It seems based on lack of due process about changing the rule, not the fundamental infringement of rights or changing the meaning of laws with letters and rules.

The way I see it, not a legal opinion, is that the government has a law about SBR’s that was enforced once way. Then a pistol brace manufacturer came along and requested a judgement on whether their product was legal or not. Once interpreted as legal, some politician determined this was not to their liking. They surveyed the political landscape and determined a majority were accepting of this acceptance of braces. Said politicians then tried to circumvent due process by writing a rule. Opposition was high, so they rewrote it. Opposition was still high, so they just issued it. The whole problem starts at not trying to just pass a law, since it would fail. If you cannot pass a law, that is because legislators don’t want it presumably because voters don’t want it! How hard is that?

I hope I’m seeing this wrong.
 
I don’t like the basis of that ruling. It seems based on lack of due process about changing the rule, not the fundamental infringement of rights or changing the meaning of laws with letters and rules.
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You are essentially correct, The court was not ruling on infringement of our rights, it was ruling on whether or not the ATF was playing by the Govt's own established rules.

They weren't.
 
Originally posted by Nathan
If you cannot pass a law, that is because legislators don’t want it presumably because voters don’t want it! How hard is that?

I hope I’m seeing this wrong.
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You are seeing it wrong, but unfortunately the truth of the matter is even worse. Not being able to pass a law doesn't necessarily mean that the legislators don't want it, only that they'd get too much backlash from their constituents by supporting it straightforwardly. Unfortunately, they've figured out a way around this as they've written laws vaguely and left their interpretation up to unelected bureaucrats in alphabet soup agencies like the ATF. This way, the alphabet soup can do their dirty work for them and issue "rulings" which carry force of law, but when the constituents take exception to the new "rules" the legislators can claim that they didn't vote for them and pontificate about "runaway" alphabet soup agencies while not actually doing anything about them.

What we're seeing in cases like this one, Cargill v. Garland, and West Virginia v. EPA is that the courts, including SCOTUS, are beginning to say that, in spite of Congress essentially ceding some of their power to the executive branch to avoid having to have "difficult" votes, the alphabet soup agencies do not have unlimited power to change law as they see fit despite the best efforts of spineless legislators.
 
Webleymkv said:
Not being able to pass a law doesn't necessarily mean that the legislators don't want it, only that they'd get too much backlash from their constituents by supporting it straightforwardly. Unfortunately, they've figured out a way around this as they've written laws vaguely and left their interpretation up to unelected bureaucrats in alphabet soup agencies like the ATF. This way, the alphabet soup can do their dirty work for them and issue "rulings" which carry force of law, but when the constituents take exception to the new "rules" the legislators can claim that they didn't vote for them and pontificate about "runaway" alphabet soup agencies while not actually doing anything about them.

What we're seeing in cases like this one, Cargill v. Garland, and West Virginia v. EPA is that the courts, including SCOTUS, are beginning to say that, in spite of Congress essentially ceding some of their power to the executive branch to avoid having to have "difficult" votes, the alphabet soup agencies do not have unlimited power to change law as they see fit despite the best efforts of spineless legislators.
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Have seen state statutes and codes specifically written/altered to be vague for this very reason, although not as frequently as other legitimate reasons. Often, it is simply impractical to write a statute that covers all possibility's or options. Jokingly this is what used to be referred to as "taking a file cabinet along fishing". Often the vagueness is specific to enforcement mechanisms. An example is a person taking a deer to feed his family compared to someone taking a trailer full and dumping them in the trash. They need to be treated differently, without the enforcement agency electing not to do their job.

While there is concern over legislatures wanting to protect themselves from voters, there is also serious concern over going too much "by the book"
 
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