A federal judge in Texas ruled that key provisions of the ATF’s 2022 regulation governing unfinished firearm frames, receivers and build kits violate the Second and Fifth Amendments, permanently barring enforcement of the rule against the plaintiffs and their members.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the Biden administration’s 2022 regulation governing unfinished firearm components violates the Constitution, handing gun-rights organizations a significant victory in a legal battle that has continued for more than four years.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled Monday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ expanded definition of a firearm “frame or receiver” violates the Second Amendment and is impermissibly vague under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
The lawsuit was brought by Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation, which challenged ATF’s Final Rule expanding federal firearms regulations to cover certain partially completed frames and receivers as well as weapons-parts kits that can be readily converted into operable firearms.
Such privately assembled, unserialized firearms are commonly referred to as “ghost guns.”
The 2022 regulation represented a departure from an ATF definition that had been in place for nearly 45 years and became a major component of the federal government’s effort to regulate unfinished firearm components and self-assembled weapons.
O’Connor concluded that the regulation failed to provide sufficiently clear guidance about when an unfinished object crosses the line and becomes a federally regulated firearm frame or receiver.
Among the language at issue were terms including “readily” and “clearly identifiable.”
The judge found that those standards did not give ordinary people adequate notice about which products or conduct are subject to federal regulation.
He also determined that the language granted ATF officials excessive discretion to decide when a partially completed component should legally be treated as a firearm.
That uncertainty, O’Connor concluded, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The court separately found that the regulation violated the Second Amendment.
Under the historical framework established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the government must identify a sufficiently comparable historical tradition of firearm regulation when defending modern restrictions covered by the Second Amendment.
Federal attorneys argued that colonial-era requirements governing the inspection of gun barrels and the safe storage of gunpowder offered historical support for the ATF rule.
O’Connor rejected that comparison.
The judge found that the earlier laws were principally directed toward safety concerns surrounding firearms and gunpowder rather than the crime-control purposes underlying ATF’s modern regulation of unfinished frames, receivers and weapons kits.
Because those historical laws and the 2022 regulation addressed materially different concerns, O’Connor concluded they were not “relevantly similar” under the Supreme Court’s Bruen test.
The decision follows several years of litigation over the rule, including a separate dispute that reached the Supreme Court.
In 2025, the justices decided Bondi v. VanDerStok and held that ATF had authority under federal statute to regulate at least some unfinished firearm frames, receivers and weapons-parts kits.
That ruling reversed an earlier appeals court decision that had limited the agency’s authority.
The Supreme Court case, however, addressed the scope of ATF’s statutory authority rather than resolving all of the constitutional claims raised in the litigation.
The plaintiffs involved in that portion of the dispute later abandoned their remaining claims following the Supreme Court’s decision.
Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation continued pursuing their separate constitutional challenges, leading to O’Connor’s latest ruling.
The distinction means Monday’s decision does not contradict the Supreme Court’s conclusion that Congress gave ATF statutory authority to regulate some unfinished firearm products.
Instead, O’Connor determined that the specific way the agency defined and regulated those products under the Final Rule violates constitutional protections as applied to the plaintiffs before him.
The judge issued a permanent injunction prohibiting ATF from enforcing the challenged provisions against Defense Distributed, the Second Amendment Foundation and SAF members.
The protection specifically extends to several products manufactured or distributed by Defense Distributed, including its M1911 80% frames and G80 build kits.
O’Connor did not rule for the plaintiffs on every issue.
Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation also brought procedural claims under the Administrative Procedure Act challenging the manner in which ATF adopted the regulation.
The judge rejected those arguments.
He determined that the agency had adequately explained why it was departing from its earlier interpretation and had acted within authority delegated to it by Congress.
As a result, the court’s decision rests on the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenges rather than a finding that ATF failed to follow required administrative procedures or lacked statutory authority altogether.
The ruling adds another chapter to the continuing legal debate over how federal firearms law applies to partially completed frames, receivers and kits that consumers can assemble into functional weapons.
The Supreme Court has already concluded that federal law allows ATF to regulate some of those products.
O’Connor’s decision now presents a different question: whether the standards the agency adopted to determine which unfinished components qualify as firearms are sufficiently clear and consistent with the Second Amendment.
For Defense Distributed, the Second Amendment Foundation and SAF members, the answer from the Northern District of Texas is no.
The permanent injunction prevents ATF from applying the challenged regulation to those parties while leaving open the possibility of further appellate litigation over the constitutional issues raised in the case.
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