A federal court ruled Biden-era regulations on “ghost guns” are unconstitutional, reigniting a legal battle that made its way to the Supreme Court last year.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, found the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rule, which dealt with firearm kits that allow a person to create a gun at home, violates the Second Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague. The rule said ghost gun kits must be subject to the same regulations as regular firearms, including by marking them with serial numbers, requiring sellers to get licenses, and performing background checks on buyers. O’Connor ruled that historical firearm tradition supports striking down the rule, as mandated by recent Supreme Court precedent that asks courts to consider American history when determining the constitutionality of gun laws.
“The Final Rule does not merely lack supporting analogues. It contradicts the actual historical tradition of personal gunsmithing,” O’Connor wrote.
“Self-manufacture of firearms in America was common and indeed foundational to establishing our Nation. Americans throughout our history have continued to build their own arms and that ‘right [has] remained unregulated throughout [much of] American history,’” he added.
The ruling from O’Connor came after the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in March 2025 that the ATF was acting within its authority when it created the rule. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion said the rule was within the scope of the ATF’s rulemaking powers, but the justices did not rule on whether the rule itself was constitutional. O’Connor’s ruling restarts the legal battle, this time on the constitutionality of the law.
Although the ATF rule was implemented to great fanfare by the Biden administration, the Trump administration has continued to defend the law in court. In a filing earlier this year, the Department of Justice argued that the judge should dismiss the claims brought by Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation, largely based on a lack of standing. The case is one of the rare instances where the Trump administration has been opposite gun rights group in a legal battle.
The Second Amendment Foundation celebrated the ruling that found the sweeping rule was unlawfully vague and violated Second Amendment protections.
“This rule was such a mess that it not only violated the Second Amendment but was so terribly drafted that it managed to be ruled unconstitutionally vague,” SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said. “The Court rightly held that the Biden ATF’s rule not only sought to outright prohibit Second Amendment protected conduct but was written in such a vague and vaporous manner as to chill that protected conduct by making it impossible to even know what was legal and what wasn’t.”
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The DOJ could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which would potentially put the case back on track to return to the Supreme Court.
The high court is set to hear a major Second Amendment case during its next term, when the justices decide whether a pair of “assault weapons” bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has yet to schedule arguments in the “assault weapons” ban case, but could hear it as soon as December.