By Lucretia Hughes

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court has ruled that the government’s categorical ban on direct interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment, delivering a significant victory for gun owners and firearms dealers.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued the ruling Friday in Elite Precision Customs LLC v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The court concluded that federal restrictions preventing law-abiding Americans from directly purchasing handguns from licensed dealers in other states burden conduct protected by the Second Amendment and lack sufficient support in the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

“The Ban sullies the plain text of the Second Amendment and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation,” Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote for the majority.

The ruling reverses a federal district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit and renders judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.

Elite Precision Customs, a federally licensed firearms manufacturer and dealer in Texas, filed the lawsuit with Arizona resident Freddie Blish, New Mexico resident Tim Herron and the Firearms Policy Coalition.

The plaintiffs challenged provisions of 18 U.S.C. Section 922 that collectively prohibit a federally licensed dealer from directly selling or delivering a handgun to a resident of another state.

Federal law allows certain face-to-face interstate sales of rifles and shotguns when the transaction complies with the laws of both states. Direct interstate handgun transactions, however, have generally been prohibited.

A person seeking to purchase a handgun from an out-of-state dealer has typically been required to have the firearm shipped to a federally licensed dealer in the buyer’s home state. That dealer then performs the required background check, completes the paperwork and transfers the firearm to the purchaser.

The process can involve additional fees and delays.

Herron told the court that intermediary dealers typically charged him between $30 and $40 to complete an interstate handgun transfer and that the process delayed his possession of the firearm.

The government argued that the availability of dealer-to-dealer transfers preserved access to handguns and made the federal restrictions a permissible condition on commercial firearm sales.

The Fifth Circuit rejected that argument.

The majority concluded that the existence of an alternative purchasing process does not save an otherwise unconstitutional prohibition. The court said the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes the ability to purchase them.

“The right to ‘keep and bear arms’ surely implies the right to purchase them,” the court stated, citing its earlier decision in Reese v. ATF.

The panel applied the constitutional test established by the Supreme Court in its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Under that test, the government must demonstrate that a firearm restriction is consistent with the country’s historical tradition of gun regulation when the restricted conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text.

The government presented a series of colonial and early American laws regulating the sale, transportation and export of firearms and gunpowder.

The majority found that those laws did not provide an adequate historical comparison to the modern interstate handgun ban.

Many of the historical laws were temporary wartime measures, regulations involving trade with foreign powers or Native American tribes, or early forms of consumer-protection rules governing the safety and quality of firearms and gunpowder.

The court concluded that those laws did not establish a historical tradition of preventing law-abiding Americans from purchasing handguns across state lines during peacetime.

Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes dissented, saying she agreed with the lower court that the challenged provisions were not unconstitutional.

The decision creates a direct disagreement between federal appellate courts. The Second Circuit upheld a similar restriction in 2025, finding that historical regulations supported the federal government’s authority to control interstate firearm transactions.

The conflicting decisions increase the possibility that the dispute could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Fifth Circuit has jurisdiction over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The ruling does not automatically strike down the interstate handgun restrictions nationwide, and further proceedings or appeals could affect when and how the decision takes effect.

The ruling also does not eliminate the federal background-check system or other laws prohibiting certain individuals from possessing firearms.

Licensed dealers must still conduct required background checks, maintain transaction records and comply with other applicable federal and state laws. Purchasers must also meet the legal requirements of their home states and the states where transactions occur.

Gun owners should therefore not assume that all direct interstate handgun purchases are immediately lawful throughout the country.

The decision addresses the categorical requirement that an otherwise lawful purchaser must use an additional dealer in the purchaser’s home state solely because the handgun is being purchased across state lines.

The ruling continues a broader shift in Second Amendment law following the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago and Bruen.

Those decisions established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms and requires governments to justify restrictions through the text of the Constitution and the nation’s historical tradition.

For Second Amendment advocates, the Fifth Circuit’s message is clear: The government cannot transform a constitutional right into a maze of unnecessary expenses and delays simply because a law-abiding American crosses a state line.

The complete Fifth Circuit opinion was issued Sept. 18 in Case No. 25-11206.

Original article