The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued an order Monday vacating U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor’s Sept. 14, 2023, decision which blocked enforcement of the Biden administration’s ghost gun rule.
The Biden administration’s ghost gun rule is contained in ATF Final Rule 2021-05F – which redefines “partially complete pistol frames” as “firearms.” This rule allows ATF to require background checks for certain gun parts kits by claiming said parts could be used to build guns.
On July 2, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Judge Reed O’Connor in the United States District Court Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division decided against the ATF’s rule in a suit brought by Jennifer VanDerStok, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and others.
O’Connor stressed that the redefinition of gun parts is actually up to Congress rather than a federal agency, and said, “Because Congress did not define ‘frame or receiver,’ the words receive their ordinary meaning.” O’Conner vacated Final Rule 2021-05F.
On July 24, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld O’Conner’s decision to vacate the rule, but the appeals process continues in the Fifth Circuit.
Breitbart News reported on August 8, 2023, SCOTUS’s decision to allow the ATF’s “partially complete” pistol frame rule to stand, while an appeal runs its course in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
O’Connor issued an injunction against the rule on September 14, 2023, and on Monday of this week, October 16, 2023, SCOTUS issued an order vacating O’Connor’s decision.
SCOTUS order: “The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted. The September 14, 2023 order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, case No. 4:22-cv-691, is vacated.”
The Order is 601 in the Supreme Court for the United States of America.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
