DOJ won’t enforce parts of 1934 gun law that were gutted by court ruling

Washington — The Justice Department said on Friday it will no longer enforce certain provisions of a 1934 law that was passed by Congress to regulate the types of firearms often used by mobsters, after a federal judge declared large parts of the law were unconstitutional.

The new guidelines released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were issued to current and future gun owners. The Justice Department determined last month it would not appeal the judge’s ruling.

Under the new guidelines, the federal government will no longer require individuals to apply and receive regulatory approval before making or transferring short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors and other various types of concealable firearms.

The Justice Department also said its new legal guidance does not supersede state and local laws that restrict the sale of those categories of weapons, adding that because many state laws still require people to register those firearms, it will continue to process those applications voluntarily.

CBS News exclusively reported last month that President Trump had ordered the Justice Department not to appeal the court ruling in Texas that loosened the limits on what used to be called “gangster weapons.”

The ruling impacted large parts of the National Firearms Act, which mandated that anyone wishing to sell, possess or make a firearm or device covered by the law had to submit a detailed written application to the ATF, among other requirements.

The law was aimed at addressing the most dangerous and easily concealable weapons that were often used by mobsters during the Prohibition era.

But in August, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee in the Northern District of Texas, ruled that most of the restrictions on all but two categories of specialized firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act are unconstitutional after Congress last year eliminated a $200 tax imposed on them.

“Because today’s NFA does not generate any revenue from untaxed firearms, its regulatory provisions cannot be upheld under the taxing power,” the judge wrote at the time.

The decision came in two consolidated cases brought against the government by 15 red states and a number of Second Amendment gun rights groups and individuals, including the Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation.

Many lawyers within the Justice Department recommended that the decision should be appealed, saying it was already adversely impacting ongoing criminal cases and that it ran afoul of the government’s duty to defend the laws passed by Congress.

Although the court’s ruling blocking the ATF from enforcing large parts of the law only applied to the parties in the lawsuit, its wording had created challenges for prosecutors. 

That’s because the judge said his ruling would also extend to any “current or future” members of the gun groups that sued over the rules. A basic membership to the Gun Owners of America is only $25.

Given that loophole, the ATF said on Friday that going forward it will not enforce the provisions of the National Firearms Act at the heart of the lawsuit against “any person as applied to the domestic manufacturing, possession, and transfer of short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers” and other applicable devices or weapons.