Like zombies on the big screen and in a popular TV show, controversial and seemingly defunct federal regulations governing the right to keep and bear arms have magically reemerged and caused unexpected trouble.
That is the case with the “engaged in the business” federal rule the previous administration established on its way out the door.
U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ended that foolishness Thursday when he denied the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) scheme to revive certain segments of the final rule.
DOJ sought backdoor extension of unconstitutional rule
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) contentious policy seemingly perished on June 12 when Judge Kacsmaryk vacated the rule. However, the DOJ then sought to keep parts of it intact.
This was a danger to scores of private gun owners and collectors who periodically sell their firearms to other citizens. There did not need to be a profit motive to be suddenly deemed “engaged in the business” and required to secure a federal license.
The DOJ voluntarily halted its appeal in April, and the June ruling should have been the final nail.
Agency stopped in its tracks from reviving discarded policy
But the ATF and DOJ instead asked Kacsmaryk to modify the vacatur. The unconstitutional framework would be allowed to remain, and the government could tinker with specifics and keep the pressure on private firearm owners.
But the government’s slick arguments did not sway the judge, who called their attorneys’ words “too clever by half.”
Apparently, in Kacsmaryk’s eyes, the DOJ wanted to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. He accused plaintiffs of attempting to “avoid the force of those Orders by rearranging a few words between the Old Rule and the new one.”
The kind of tactics expected from such outlier states and New York and California, not an agency that claims it is the “most pro-Second Amendment Department of Justice in history.”
Words backed by more words, not actions, are worse than meaningless. They give some who are not paying close attention the illusion that the DOJ is safeguarding their right to keep and bear arms.
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