Texas Judge Strikes the Biden Ghost-Gun Rule — After SCOTUS Already Upheld ATF’s Power to Write It

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth ruled Monday, August 18, 2026 that the Biden-era 2022 ATF “ghost gun” rule is unconstitutional. Reuters reported the order: the regulation violates the Second Amendment and is too vague to satisfy Fifth Amendment due process. The 2022 rule treated partially complete frames and receivers and commercial gun kits as “firearms” under the 1968 Gun Control Act, forcing makers to serialize the parts, get licensed, and run background checks on buyers.

This is not the Supreme Court reversing itself. In March 2025 the Court, 7–2, upheld the same regulation on a different question: whether ATF exceeded its statutory authority. That ruling did not decide constitutionality. After it landed, the Second Amendment Foundation and kit maker Defense Distributed went back to O’Connor on the 2A and due-process claims the justices had not reached. O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, held that the rule infringes the right to make or repair personal firearms by choking off components and “contradicts the actual historical tradition of personal gunsmithing.” He wrote: “Self-manufacture of firearms in America was common and indeed foundational to establishing our Nation.”

The injunction is not a nationwide delete key. O’Connor blocked enforcement against Defense Distributed and SAF members as to some of the company’s products. SAF executive director Adam Kraut called the Biden-era rule “a mess.” The Justice Department, which oversees ATF, did not immediately comment. Reuters noted the Trump DOJ had been defending the rule in court even as the administration otherwise expanded gun rights. Everytown Law’s Eric Tirschwell: “There is no Second Amendment right to buy or sell an untraceable ghost gun kit without a background check. This decision is egregiously wrong, and we expect the Justice Department to promptly appeal.”

Home gunsmithing is the American tradition this rule tried to regulate into a serialized, licensed, NICS transaction. The fight now is scope and appeal — not whether your grandfather’s workbench was a loophole.