In a July decision in the case of VanDerStok v. Garland, Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas paused the implementation of some Biden administration Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) regulations on so-called "ghost guns." These kits of non-fireable materials are purchasable online and, with some machining, can be turned into functional homemade guns that would lack any government-ordered serial number and thus be "untraceable."
Yesterday, the Supreme Court, in a one-page order with no analysis, decided that the District Court opinion stopping the enforcement of those anti-"ghost gun" regulations (specifically, "the Final Rule, Definition of 'Frame or Receiver' and Identification of Firearms…codified at 27 C.F.R. pts. 447, 478, and 479 (2022)") is "stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought."
