“O’Connor Strikes Back”: Federal Judge Exempts Plaintiffs From Biden’s ATF ‘Frame And Reciever’ Rule 

What’s not being reported by corporate media outlets, such as Reuters, AP News, Bloomberg, and others, because any win (big or small) for the Second Amendment community is rarely covered due to their commitment to anti-gunners, such as ‘Everytown’ and ‘Giffords,’ is that Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas granted the plaintiffs in the Garland v. VanDerStok case, Defense Distributed and BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. (doing business as 80 Percent Arms) motions for an injunction pending appeal, which basically means they’re the only two companies that can sell ‘ghost guns’ nationally (or partially completed frames and receivers and weapons parts kits) while the case continues. 

LEGAL ALERT: The district court judge in our lawsuit challenging the ATF’s “frame or receiver” rule granted Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms’ motions for injunction pending appeal, meaning it can’t be enforced against them while the case continues. https://t.co/qcBmmWGKrv pic.twitter.com/HlLB8agM6k

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 14, 2023

“Last month, a cringing Roberts Court blinked under protest and preserved the Biden frame and receiver rule for the life of the first appeal from a final judgment of the Texas district court. Big sad. That appeal isn’t exactly going well for ATF …,” Defense Distributed wrote in a blog post. 

Defense Distributed continued, “This month, Judge O’Connor strikes back with forty-two pages of just why he has the authority to issue an injunction against the frame and receiver rule, as to at least two VanDerStok plaintiffs: Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms.”

Defense Distributed, the online, open-source hardware and software organization that pioneered the first 3D-printed ghost gun, the “liberator” a decade ago, expects, “DOJ probably appeals, but the Biden admin is now in the worst place they could be: The true believer fanatics in this industry have achieved a commercial monopoly. Oops.” 

Recall, that the president was in the Rose Garden in April 2022, vowing to crack down on untraceable firearms:

“These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” Biden, adding “We’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice.”

As a strategic move in June, Defense Distributed unveiled a 0% lower for handguns, essentially a block of steel, instead of the usual 80% lower, challenging federal regulators in their oversight attempts. The company revealed the 0% lower for ARs at SHOT Show 2022. 

Making sense of this all, what Defense Distributed is saying is that Biden’s Department of Justice was attempting to crush the partially completed frames and receivers industry but failed as it only backfired and created a “commercial monopoly” where Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms will be the only players to sell ghost guns kits in the US legally. 

*   *   * 

Here’s the ruling: