Supreme Court ‘Ghost Gun’ Case: Three Conservatives Justices Might Side with ATF

Iconfess: I expected yesterday’s Supreme Court argument in Garland v. VanDerStok to be a nonevent and didn’t tune in to listen live. As I noted in my Supreme Court preview and as Charlie explained in more detail, the case has the Biden administration defending a 2022 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation that tried to greatly expand the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) in a novel and strained way — and that seemed to me likely to meet the same fate as the Trump-era ATF’s bump-stock ban that was struck down in June in Garland v. Cargill. All six of the Court’s Republican appointees joined the majority in Cargill. Two of the six (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) declined to keep in place the injunction staying the ATF’s rule in VanDerStok, but given their votes in Cargill and the weakness of the ATF’s argument, I chalked that up to Roberts and Barrett’s being gun-shy (so to speak) about stays, rather than to their being likely to side with the ATF on the merits.

Was I wrong? Following the argument, SCOTUSBlog, the New York Times, and Law.com all concluded that the signs in the argument pointed to a win for the ATF. What happened?

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Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Iconfess: I expected yesterday’s Supreme Court argument in Garland v. VanDerStok to be a nonevent and didn’t tune in to listen live. As I noted in my Supreme Court preview and as Charlie explained in more detail, the case has the Biden administration defending a 2022 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation that tried to greatly expand the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) in a novel and strained way — and that seemed to me likely to meet the same fate as the Trump-era ATF’s bump-stock ban that was struck down in June in Garland v. Cargill. All six of the Court’s Republican appointees joined the majority in Cargill. Two of the six (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) declined to keep in place the injunction staying the ATF’s rule in VanDerStok, but given their votes in Cargill and the weakness of the ATF’s argument, I chalked that up to Roberts and Barrett’s being gun-shy (so to speak) about stays, rather than to their being likely to side with the ATF on the merits.

Was I wrong? Following the argument, SCOTUSBlog, the New York Times, and Law.com all concluded that the signs in the argument pointed to a win for the ATF. What happened?