WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up an appeal by President Joe Biden’s administration over regulations on hard-to-trace firearms that had been struck down by lower courts.
The judges, by 5 votes in favor and 4 against, had previously intervened to keep the regulations in force during the legal dispute. So-called ghost guns, which lack serial numbers, have been turning up at crime scenes with increasing regularity.
The regulation, which took effect in 2022, changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, such as the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be more easily traced. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also perform background checks before a sale, as they do with other commercially manufactured firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the gun was manufactured, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or using 3D printers. The rule does not prohibit people from purchasing a kit or any type of firearm.
The Justice Department had told the court that authorities seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than 10-fold increase in just five years.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, struck down the rule last year, concluding that it exceeded the authority of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT). O’Connor wrote that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover all parts of a weapon. Congress could change the law, he wrote.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, made up of three appointees of then-President Donald Trump, largely upheld O’Connor’s ruling.
The Supreme Court allowed the regulation to remain in effect while the lawsuit continued. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeal process.
Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were appointed by Trump.
