ATF Keeps Biden's Ghost Gun Power Grab Alive

The ATF just betrayed every gun owner who thought a change in administration meant a change in rules.

Despite two active federal lawsuits challenging Biden's 2022 frames-and-receivers regulation — VanDerStok v. Bondi and Defense Distributed v. Bondi — the agency quietly signaled it will keep the rule on the books while it drafts a "replacement." That is not reform. That is a stall tactic.

The 2022 rule, cooked up under Biden's anti-gun Justice Department, radically expanded the definition of what counts as a firearm "frame or receiver." It targeted unserialized firearms and build kits — and dragged millions of law-abiding hobbyists and manufacturers into a regulatory gray zone overnight.

Now Acting AG Todd Blanche's DOJ and the ATF are asking courts to pause those lawsuits — not to kill the rule, but to buy time to rewrite it. Gun owners should ask one simple question: why does any version of this unconstitutional overreach need to survive?

The ATF never got Congress to pass a law. It invented new definitions out of thin air and criminalized ordinary parts. Federal courts have already hammered this rule repeatedly. The Fifth Circuit called it a serious statutory stretch. The Supreme Court took up the question in Garland v. VanDerStok — and the fight is not over.

Leaving a Biden-era power grab in place while bureaucrats draft a softer version is not a Second Amendment win. It is the same wolf in different clothing.

America's gun owners did not vote for regime change at the ATF to watch the agency preserve the architecture of Biden's anti-gun agenda. Dismantle the rule entirely. Do not renegotiate it.

Contact Acting AG Todd Blanche's office and your congressional representatives today. Demand the frames-and-receivers rule be rescinded — not revised.