AUSTIN — The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) and America First Legal (AFL) are celebrating a lower court’s decision to reject the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss a case against ATF overreach. TPPF and AFL are representing an Austin gun store owner, Michael Cargill, on behalf of Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders across the country who risk losing their licenses over a spurious reinterpretation of a decades-old law.
“The court properly denied the government’s baseless motion to dismiss. This case will now proceed to the merits, where we will show that the ATF illegally and unconstitutionally rewrote the clear rules that Congress established for federal firearms licensees. Gun shops can’t be put out of business over simple paperwork errors,” said Matt Miller, a senior attorney in TPPF’s Center for the American Future.
Center for the American Future attorney Nate Curtisi added, “This Administration’s attempt to dodge legal accountability for its targeting of gun shops was quickly and rightly rejected by the court. We look forward to showing how the ATF is egregiously overstepping its bounds in enforcing the Gun Control Act and is threatening Americans’ Second Amendment rights everywhere.”
“The ATF, under the Biden Administration, is enforcing the gun control act in a way that is designed to stifle the Second Amendment rights of all Americans. The Biden administration has adopted a ‘whole of government approach’ in this effort, which includes an effort to put firearm dealers out of business, effectively eliminating the citizens’ right to bear arms. AFL and TPPF are partnering to protect these rights and to fight the Biden administration’s efforts to undermine the Constitution. We recently marked a major milestone in this effort, defeating the administration’s effort to have our case dismissed, and we look forward to fighting this case on the merits in the months ahead,” said Nick Barry, America First Legal Senior Counsel.
To view the full text of the decision, please click here.
To view the full complaint, please click here.
Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin that aims to foster human flourishing by protecting and promoting liberty, opportunity, and personal responsibility. The Center for the American Future defends the Constitution through legal opposition to government overreach. The Center launches legal challenges at the administrative, district, and appellate court levels on behalf of ordinary people whose lives, liberty, and property are threatened by government action in defiance of the Constitution.
America First Legal (AFL) is a national, nonprofit organization that works to promote the rule of law in the United States, prevent executive overreach, ensure due process and equal protection for all Americans, and to encourage the understanding of the law and individual rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States.
###