One of the bedrocks of First Amendment rights is the ability to communicate freely without prior restraint. The legal threshold for justifying telling Americans what they can and cannot say before the fact is high—and for good reason.
But that’s what Gun Owners of America (GOA) and its legal arm, Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), face right now.
Their battle against a district court’s gag order is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. What the GOA is suppressed from speaking of is information legally garnered from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The reason the ATF targets specific firearm transactions for monitoring is unclear
In 2021, the gun rights organization was concerned about possible misuse of the NICS Monitoring Program.
Conducted by the FBI for use in ATF matters, federal officials track firearm purchases approved through the National Instant Background Check System (NICS).
The reasoning for federal interest in specific gun transactions is unclear. These actions are often undertaken without the formality of a warrant or even a clear suspicion of specific criminal wrongdoing.
Critics charge that the government conducted ‘prior restraint’ against 2A organization
The ATF released several documents over the course of the lawsuit, but in 2023, officials said they had released unredacted information that should have been withheld in response to the FOIA request.
GOA promptly told the ATF what it had done and did not publish the material. That did not stop the federal government from getting a “temporary” gag order that became permanent last summer.
In the GOA’s opening brief, its lawyers argued that such conduct is unconstitutional. “The court’s gag order is a classic prior restraint on speech and press rights. There is no national security justification, no risk of irreparable harm, and no statutory basis for the court’s actions.”
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