AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton is heading a multi-state coalition to sue the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for allegedly attempting to abridge Americans’ constitutional right to privately buy and sell firearms.
Paxton argues that the ATF’s regulatory restrictions go beyond the authority granted to the agency by Congress. He says the new Final Rule is arbitrary and capricious and is a flagrant violation of the Second Amendment.
Paxton is seeking immediate injunctive relief to stop the ATF from enforcing its unlawful edict while the issue is considered fully by the courts.
In the past, Congress deliberately recognized the legality of private sales of firearms by non-dealers, going so far as to narrow the statutory definition of “dealer” to prevent the ATF from unlawfully suppressing the private transfer of firearms, the press release states.
On April 19, the ATF published a new regulation that would subject hundreds of thousands of gun owners to presumptions of criminal guilt for engaging in the private sale of firearms.
“Yet again, Joe Biden is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to rip up the Constitution and destroy our citizens’ Second Amendment rights,” said Paxton. “This is a dramatic escalation of his tyrannical abuse of authority. With today’s lawsuit, it is my great honor to defend our Constitutionally-protected freedoms from the out-of-control federal government.”