If you’re like me (and you are reading this right now, after all), you likely get a sense of real joy whenever you see the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives receive a loss in court. After all, the ATF is one of the biggest thorns in the side of law-abiding Americans who simply want to exercise their Second Amendment rights and keep and bear firearms to protect themselves and their familiar.
So, assuming that you are like me, you’ll likely get great joy from today’s story because this story is exactly what I described earlier: It is the ATF taking a loss in court in a ruling that sided with you and me and our Second Amendment rights. Tom Ozimek writes,
A federal judge in Texas has ruled in favor of gun rights groups who sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in a bid to overturn the agency’s prohibition of forced reset triggers, devices that increase the firing rate of semi-automatic guns.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas wrote in a July 23 order that the ATF exceeded its authority when it classified forced reset triggers as machine guns and, with very narrow exceptions, made them illegal.
“Each time an agency circumvents the legislative process it chips away at the most prudent reason for the separation of powers that is, ensuring unelected and unaccountable individuals do not make the law,” the judge wrote, adding that the country’s foundational documents granted lawmaking authority to duly elected officials in order to “safeguard against future tyranny.”
“While this case may seem focused on firearms, it represents so much more,” the judge wrote. “It is emblematic of a devastating problem that increasingly rears its head in federal courts: rampant evasion of the democratic process.”
The case was brought by Texas Gun Rights (TXGR) and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), whose initial complaint challenged the ATF’s classification of forced reset triggers as machine guns on the premise that the ban was arbitrary and capricious, and violated constitutional rights.
Judge O’Connor clearly cares about the Constitution and about doing the legal and right thing. His ruling in this case is spot on right.
The ATF’s efforts to strip gun rights are about a systemic abuse of power that has been rampant in Washington where the Executive Branch (of which all departments such as the ATF are a part) has been running roughshod over separation of powers and over the rights of the American people.
It’s truly great to see this decision come down in court in favor of the Constitution and the American people, and thank you to Texas Gun Rights and the National Association for Gun Rights for taking this fight to court for all of us.