Judge kills ATF enforcement actions against force reset triggers (FRTs)

[Suck My Glock]

Unless the gubbamint appeals to the 5th Circuit successfully to overturn this most recent development (which seems very unlikely), ATF's campaign against FRTs is dead.

[campinginaz]

You post a lot of good news! I don't have one of these but this is still awesome news for everyone!

[pneuby]

I am betting it's only applicable in that circuit, shared by Texas and some other states. I am perplexed that he didn't mention nor clarify this aspect of the matter.

[Suck My Glock]

I am betting it's only applicable in that circuit, shared by Texas and some other states. I am perplexed that he didn't mention nor clarify this aspect of the matter.

Some attorney here can correct me if I don't have this right, but my understanding is that when a federal judge at the district level makes such a ruling against a national agency, it holds against that agency nationwide UNLESS AND UNTIL that agency appeals it to the circuit level and the circuit counters the district and holds a different result.

Because this is within the 5th Circuit, which has rather reliably been shooting holes in nearly every ATF scheme, the ATF realizes they are totally FUBAR on this, so why even bother taking it before the 5th Circuit at all? Especially if the 5th Circuit is merely likely to just make things worse for them. A better tactic for ATF would be to instead go ahead and try to enforce their rule in some part of the country where the courts are in their pocket and will defend anything ATF does. Then they have conflicting judge rulings, which in practice pretty much leaves them to go on ignoring the ruling from Texas until some other federal court rules as the Texas district has and gets applied successfully to whatever circuit there. But ATF knows that anything they do in the 5th Circuit now is automatically barred.

So what prevents the ATF from simply operating as they please everywhere else except the 5th Circuit? Well, even in circuits that are dominated by friends of ATF, like here in the 9th, there is a minority of judges that see through the BS and are willing to rule by law rather than ideology, such as Judge Benitez has done here in the 9th. So there are no true guarantees for the ATF. And the renderings put forth in the Texas district act as a template judges elsewhere (if they are so inclined) can refer to and adopt in other federal courts. Imagine if ATF decided to enforce their made up rule here in Arizona, get a desired result, but gets appealed to the 9th Circuit,...and if that case landed before Benitez? Not only would FRTs then suddenly be unenforceable throughout the 9th as well as the 5th,...but that harmonization of 2 circuit courts is then usually instructive to any other circuit or federal courts, and now ATFs chances of ever winning ever again plummet, even at the Supreme Court if it ever went that far. And thus, ATF is today, with their undesired result in Texas, merely one more overturned enforcement case away from pretty much sinking their scheme forever. If they want to try to continue this at all, they have to be VERY careful in their selection of victim and geographical location of said victim.

[xerts1191]

The hits just keep on coming