There are so many problems the ATF faces from a legal standpoint with this “ruling”, that they would be decimated in court:
Any judge ruling in their favor would have to ignore:
Article 1, Section 9 regarding ex post facto laws. Not only does ATF not have law-making authority, but Congress isn’t even allowed to make ex post facto laws. ATF loses doubly on that one.
2A is self explanatory and this is the main pillar multiple Sheriffs are already citing, namely that ATF has no authority to violate the people’s rights to keep and bear arms, and Sheriffs being sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution will not allow ATF to come into their jurisdictions to attempt to enforce said “rulings”.
4A applies to everyone who now lives in fear of threat of force of ATF violating their person, places, and effects. ATF is violating this every day they assert that this “ruling” is valid and will go into effect.
5A applies to protection from self incrimination, which their forms and demands in the ruling violate. ATF is saying ex post facto that these firearms they and the Treasury deemed to be Title I firearms are now Title II, and always have been Title II. By getting you to apply for registration, you are agreeing to their claim these were always NFA items in your possession, even with all their determination letters saying otherwise dating back to Nov 26, 2012.
9A favors the people with regard to any rights not mentioned in the BoR.
10A favors the People and States
CFR 26 covers Federal Excise Taxes on Title I firearms, which these 10-40 million samples fall under. ATF and Treasury have classified, accepted FET taxes on, and monitored the manufacturer and transfer of these firearms under Title I since 2013. Any judge even not familiar with the law will ask, “Why did you officially classify, accept FET, and process these millions of firearms under Title I if you now saw they were never Title I firearms? The CFR and FET seems pretty clear on this.”
CFR 27 covers Federal Excise Taxes and duties collected on imported Title I firearms. Think Striborgs, Hk, B&T, Cz, and other European companies who paid all the duties and excise taxes under the US CFR 27 by the book, now are being told those were actually all NFA items (NFA items aren’t able to be imported). Judge will ask the same question. “What the hell are you guys doing here? None of this makes sense to me.”
That then triggers 922(r), so even if people try to incriminate themselves according to ATF’s registration scheme, they now are harmed financially with burdensome parts compliance and no remedies.
A judge would also have to rule in favor of ATF in violation of Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, where the government or any entity is forbidden from keepings ownership records on firearms possessed by the people, so a judge would have to ignore that actual law passed by Congress.
1934 NFA. Interestingly, if ATF’s technical claims are true, ATF is incriminating themselves by declaring that they supervised, encouraged, and authored the distribution of millions of NFA firearms into the market in violation of the 1934 NFA itself, while defrauding the Treasury of NFA taxes, and are now arbitrarily deciding to enact a massive enforcement measure in some sort of gotcha scheme. Imagine trying to explain that to a judge.
Then a judge would have to side with the ATF against the Supreme Court of the United States in the following court cases:
DC vs Heller
NY State Pistol and Rifle Assoc. vs Bruen
McDonald vs Chicago
West Virginia vs EPA
That new ATF Director just admitted on TV that they (ATF) passed a new rule to ban ghost guns. ATF has no authority to pass anything.
This would be a great piece of evidence to use in court, to emphasize and document before the judge how this Prohibition-era unconstitutional agency has really been out of control, and doesn’t understand how our laws work in the United States.
“Your honor, I think this is a great opportunity for the judicial branch to remind an unelected Federal bureaucracy that was formed to bypass due process with gangsters like Dillinger in the early 1930s, that they don’t have the power to make laws and harm millions of Americans who are freely exercising their rights."
