DOJ Kills Biden's ATF Dealer Licensing Power Grab

Acting AG Todd Blanche's DOJ filed a motion to dismiss Texas v. ATF, abandoning a sweeping ATF regulation that forced thousands of private gun sellers to obtain federal firearms licenses. This is a decisive win for the Second Amendment.

The Biden-era rule twisted the definition of being 'engaged in the business' of selling firearms, dragging ordinary gun owners — people selling off a few personal firearms — into the same regulatory net as licensed dealers. It was a bureaucratic trap designed to criminalize everyday commerce between law-abiding Americans.

Texas led the charge against this regulatory overreach, arguing the ATF rule exceeded its statutory authority and trampled on constitutional rights. The DOJ's refusal to defend the rule in court confirms they were right.

This is what dismantling the administrative state looks like in practice. No floor speeches. No press conferences. Just a motion to dismiss that guts one of the most aggressive anti-gun regulatory moves of the Biden years.

The ATF spent years building a portfolio of rules designed to make legal gun ownership harder, more expensive, and more legally precarious — the pistol brace rule, the frame and receiver rule, and this one, which turned selling your grandfather's old hunting rifle into a potential federal crime if the ATF decided you did it too enthusiastically.

Gun owners need to stay clear-eyed about what this means: the fight isn't over. The regulatory apparatus that produced these rules still exists. The bureaucrats who wrote them still have jobs. Congress still hasn't passed legislation to permanently rein in ATF's rulemaking authority.

One DOJ motion doesn't dismantle a hostile agency. It takes sustained pressure from gun owners, state attorneys general willing to keep filing suits, and legislators ready to defund ATF overreach at the source.

Contact your representatives today and demand permanent statutory limits on ATF's power to redefine who counts as a gun dealer. Don't let this victory be the ceiling — make it the floor.