ATF Keeps Biden's Ghost Gun Rule — Trump DOJ Stands Down

The ATF just told gun owners to pound sand — and the Trump Justice Department is letting them.

Despite two active federal lawsuits challenging the Biden-era 2022 frames and receivers rule, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has signaled it will keep the regulation on the books while it drafts a so-called "replacement." That's not reform. That's a delay tactic dressed up as progress.

The rule redefined what legally constitutes a "firearm frame or receiver" — a move that turned millions of law-abiding Americans into potential felons overnight and gutted the home-build market without a single vote in Congress.

In both VanDerStok v. Bondi and Defense Distributed v. Bondi, the ATF requested stays — asking courts to hit pause — while the agency claims it's working on a new rule. Gun rights attorneys see this for what it is: bureaucratic rope-a-dope.

Acting AG Todd Blanche's Justice Department has the authority to pull federal attorneys off defense of this unconstitutional rule right now. That hasn't happened.

Let that sink in. A Biden-era regulatory power grab targeting home gunsmiths and parts kit builders remains fully operational federal law.

The ATF has a long, documented history of expanding its own authority through regulation rather than legislation — rewriting definitions to criminalize behavior Congress never prohibited. The frames and receivers rule is a textbook example: bureaucrats in Washington deciding that an unfinished piece of metal is a firearm because they say so.

Criminal violence in this country is committed by criminals — not by hobbyists legally building their own firearms, a practice protected by decades of federal law and the Constitution itself.

Gun owners need to demand answers from Acting AG Blanche and their representatives on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The ATF doesn't get to inherit Biden's wishlist just because the calendar flipped.

Contact your congressman today and demand the DOJ withdraw its defense of the 2022 frames and receivers rule — before the ATF uses "replacement rulemaking" as cover to make it even worse.