My Right To Carry

ghost guns

  • ATF Moves to Undo Pistol Brace, “Ghost Gun,” and Dealer Rule Changes

    ATF Moves to Undo Pistol Brace, “Ghost Gun,” and Dealer Rule Changes

    My Right To Carry News Team

    My Right To Carry News Team

    Federal gun policy may be headed for a major reset after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives released new documents outlining how it intends to roll back several high-profile regulations adopted in recent years. The agency’s latest publications indicate that multiple rules that reshaped how certain firearms and gun businesses are treated under federal law could be formally withdrawn.

    At the center of the changes are three regulations that have drawn intense debate over roughly the last seven years. The ATF’s newly published details point toward eliminating each of these measures through the federal rulemaking process, which would remove them from the books once completed.

    One of the targeted rules is the pistol brace regulation, a policy that affected how braced pistols were classified and whether they would be treated similarly to firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act. Another is the rule commonly associated with “ghost guns,” which addressed the status of privately made firearms and items such as frames and receivers. The third is the firearm dealer rule, which changed how federal authorities interpret who is considered to be “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms and therefore required to obtain a federal firearms license.

    From a libertarian-leaning perspective, the significance of the ATF’s move is that it signals a retreat from regulatory expansions that many gun owners and small businesses viewed as unclear, burdensome, or beyond what Congress explicitly authorized. Supporters of the rollbacks argue that major shifts in gun law should be decided by lawmakers rather than implemented through agency rule changes that can rapidly alter compliance expectations.

    For now, the key development is the publication of the agency’s rollback plans and supporting information, which lays out the path for these rules to “officially disappear” if the process is carried through. The outcome will determine whether the three controversial regulations remain in force or are replaced by a return to prior federal interpretations.

  • Tenth Circuit Strikes Down Federal Rule on “Ghost Gun” Kits

    Tenth Circuit Strikes Down Federal Rule on “Ghost Gun” Kits

    My Right To Carry News Team

    My Right To Carry News Team

    A major shift just landed for anyone dealing in “ghost gun” kits and unserialized frames or receivers across the Tenth Circuit. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has struck down the federal ATF rule that attempted to regulate unfinished frames and receivers—often sold as parts kits—by treating many of them as firearms.

    That ruling changes what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can enforce right now within the Tenth Circuit, even as the larger nationwide fight continues in other courts. For kit sellers, buyers, and compliance teams, the immediate question isn’t philosophical—it’s practical: what rules apply today, what has paused, and what still exposes you to risk.

    What the decision does inside the Tenth Circuit
    With the ATF’s unfinished frames and receivers rule knocked out in this region, the agency’s ability to rely on that rule as the basis for enforcement against qualifying kits is immediately constrained in Tenth Circuit states. That means the federal regulatory hook that many businesses adjusted to—treating certain kits like completed firearms for purposes such as serialization and licensed-dealer processing—no longer has the same force here.

    If you sell kits: your compliance playbook may diverge by geography
    For businesses that ship or sell firearm parts kits, this decision creates a real split in day-to-day compliance. Inside the Tenth Circuit, the ATF rule is no longer the controlling standard. Outside the Tenth Circuit, sellers still have to assume the federal rule may be enforced depending on the jurisdiction and the posture of ongoing litigation.

    In practice, many sellers are now facing a choice:
    1) Keep a single nationwide compliance standard (more conservative, easier operationally).
    2) Run a Tenth Circuit-specific approach (potentially less burdensome here, but operationally complex and legally sensitive).
    3) Pause certain product offerings or shipping destinations until the legal landscape stabilizes.

    Even for sellers who want to loosen restrictions in Tenth Circuit states, the business risk doesn’t disappear. State laws and other federal statutes still matter, and this ruling does not guarantee that future appeals or other courts won’t bring different outcomes.

    If you buy kits: federal treatment shifts here, but your state law still controls
    For buyers in the Tenth Circuit, the biggest immediate impact is that the ATF can’t lean on the vacated federal rule to treat covered unfinished frames/receivers or parts kits as regulated firearms under that rule’s framework. But that doesn’t mean “anything goes.”

    State and local restrictions can still prohibit certain conduct, and they can be broader than federal requirements. Colorado, for example, has its own restrictions aimed at unserialized frames, receivers, and firearms. Those state limits remain a separate legal layer, and the Tenth Circuit’s action on the federal rule doesn’t automatically cancel state bans.

    ATF enforcement posture: narrower in the Tenth Circuit, but not frozen everywhere
    The ruling restricts ATF’s ability to enforce the invalidated federal rule in the Tenth Circuit, but it doesn’t eliminate ATF authority generally. The agency can still pursue cases under other federal laws where applicable. The practical change is that the specific regulatory theory created by the unfinished frames and receivers rule is no longer available as a basis for enforcement here.

    Meanwhile, ATF can still take a different posture in jurisdictions outside the Tenth Circuit, where the rule may remain in effect depending on ongoing litigation.

    Why this matters beyond the federal rule: courts are scrutinizing “end-run” reasoning
    This moment also arrives as courts continue to wrestle with how far governments can go in regulating possession, acquisition, and manufacture while claiming the Second Amendment isn’t implicated. In a separate Tenth Circuit case involving Colorado’s ban on unserialized firearms, frames, and receivers, the court rejected the idea that a possession ban can be treated as merely a condition on commercial sales. The panel emphasized that a prohibition on possessing an unserialized frame or firearm regulates possession regardless of how it was obtained.

    That analysis signals something important for compliance planning: courts in this circuit are paying close attention to how laws are characterized, especially when governments argue that regulations affecting firearms fall outside the Second Amendment’s coverage.

    Where things go next: regional reality now, national uncertainty later
    This decision doesn’t end the broader dispute over how unfinished frames, receivers, and firearm parts kits should be treated under federal law. It does, however, create an immediate and concrete enforcement boundary within the Tenth Circuit.

    For sellers, the operational question becomes whether to standardize compliance nationally or tailor it to a patchwork legal map. For buyers, the key takeaway is that federal regulatory treatment has shifted here—but state bans and other restrictions may still apply. For the ATF, this ruling narrows one pathway for enforcement in this circuit while leaving the agency to rely on other tools and to continue litigating in other regions.

    Until the wider litigation resolves, the most realistic posture in the Tenth Circuit is cautious flexibility: understand what the ruling changes today, document your compliance decisions, and be prepared to adjust quickly if a higher court or another proceeding reshapes the rules again.

  • Analysis of the Debate Over “Ghost Gun” Bans

    Analysis of the Debate Over “Ghost Gun” Bans

    My Right To Carry News Team

    My Right To Carry News Team

    The legal fight over state “ghost gun” bans is moving again, and a fresh decision out of the Tenth Circuit is already changing the playbook for how these laws get defended after New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

    This week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a split decision in NAGR v. Polis, a case challenging Colorado’s restrictions on firearms, frames, and receivers that lack serial numbers. The plaintiffs, led by the National Association for Gun Rights, were appealing a district court ruling from May 2024 that refused to temporarily block Colorado’s law while the lawsuit proceeds.

    Colorado still gets to keep its statute in force for now. But the panel did something that matters well beyond this one dispute: it rejected a common argument lower courts have been using to avoid Bruen’s history-and-tradition test—especially when a law touches the act of possessing a firearm.

    The district court had treated Colorado’s possession prohibition as if it were basically a sales rule, reasoning that it operated like a “condition or qualification on the commercial sale of firearms.” Under that framing, the judge concluded the possession restriction didn’t even fall within the Second Amendment’s text, sidestepping Bruen’s requirement to justify gun regulations through historical analogues.

    The Tenth Circuit refused to go along. Writing for the majority, Judge Joel Carson said the possession ban regulates possession of an unserialized firearm or frame regardless of how it was acquired. The panel’s point was straightforward: calling a possession ban a “commercial regulation” doesn’t make it one, and the Second Amendment’s protection of keeping arms can’t be analyzed away by re-labeling the restriction as something about prior transactions.

    That holding directly undercuts the “commercial regulation” workaround that has become increasingly popular in post-Bruen litigation. Courts have leaned on it most often to sustain rules like waiting periods and some background-check-related requirements by describing them as regulating acquisition rather than the “keeping” and “bearing” of arms. Whatever the ultimate fate of those other laws, the Tenth Circuit’s message here is clear: once a statute criminalizes or prohibits possession itself, the analysis can’t be dodged by pretending it’s only about commerce.

    The panel also revived key parts of the challenge to Colorado’s purchasing restrictions for unserialized parts and kits. The district court had dismissed that portion as premature, saying the plaintiffs weren’t facing a distinct harm because federal rules—specifically the ATF’s “unfinished frames and receivers” final rule—covered the same conduct anyway. In other words, the lower court treated federal regulation as making Colorado’s ban irrelevant for purposes of the lawsuit.

    The Tenth Circuit disagreed. Judge Carson explained that the ATF’s rule does block some transactions involving unserialized parts kits, but it doesn’t sweep as broadly as Colorado’s statute. One major difference the panel highlighted is that the ATF rule does not apply to private individuals in the way Colorado’s law does. So if the plaintiffs want to buy from private sellers, Colorado’s statute creates an additional, separate legal injury that a court ruling could actually remedy.

    Because of that, the appeals court sent the case back to the district court with instructions to take another look at the request to block enforcement—this time with the correct understanding of both the possession ban and the acquisition ban.

    That remand was the extent of the immediate wins for the challengers. On the manufacturing side of Colorado’s law, the panel adopted a narrow interpretation of what counts as “manufacturing” under the statute—an interpretation that effectively removed the plaintiffs’ intended conduct from the scope of the provision they were attacking.

    The plaintiffs said they planned to build privately made firearms from parts kits by turning unfinished frames or receivers into finished ones. The court framed the core question as whether finishing an unfinished frame or receiver is “manufacturing” under Colorado law. The state compared the process to assembling a model airplane from a kit, arguing that ordinary usage wouldn’t label assembly as manufacturing.

    The panel found support for the state’s interpretation in how the statute described related concepts. Judge Carson pointed to the law’s definition of a 3D printer as a “manufacturing device” that produces an object through an additive process. By contrast, the statute described the process at issue—taking an unfinished frame to a finished one—as “completing,” “assembling,” or “converting,” rather than “producing” it through a manufacturing process.

    Based on that textual context, the Tenth Circuit concluded the manufacturing ban targets making frames or receivers from raw materials, not finishing or assembling an already-manufactured unfinished frame into a completed one. With that reading in place, the panel dismissed the plaintiffs’ manufacturing-ban challenge because, as interpreted, the law didn’t prohibit what they said they wanted to do.

    So where does that leave the broader debate over ghost gun bans?

    Right now, Colorado’s entire framework remains on the books while the district court re-evaluates the surviving claims. It’s also impossible to predict how the lower court will apply the full Second Amendment framework once it returns to the merits.

    But the direction from the Tenth Circuit reshapes how these disputes are likely to be argued, especially under Bruen. The panel’s opinion signals that a possession restriction—particularly one that applies no matter how an item was obtained—must be treated as a direct burden on the right to keep arms, not smuggled into a “commercial sales regulation” category to avoid constitutional scrutiny. And by rejecting the idea that the ATF’s separate regulatory regime makes state acquisition bans unchallengeable, the ruling keeps state laws from being insulated simply because federal rules touch some of the same territory.

    In practical terms, the court didn’t strike down Colorado’s ghost gun law. What it did do is remove a convenient escape hatch. For states defending ghost gun bans that reach possession, the Tenth Circuit has made the path narrower: if the law regulates possession, courts in this circuit will have to confront the Second Amendment question head-on, with Bruen’s historical-analogue analysis in view rather than parked off to the side.

  • Maryland Gun Dealer to Pay Baltimore $2 Million in Ghost Gun Settlement

    Maryland Gun Dealer to Pay Baltimore $2 Million in Ghost Gun Settlement

    My Right To Carry News Team

    My Right To Carry News Team

    Baltimore is moving to convert a headline jury verdict into day-to-day enforcement leverage through a new settlement with Hanover Armory, a Maryland firearms retailer accused of selling products linked to the city’s surge in unserialized, privately made firearms often called “ghost guns.” City officials announced this week that the dealer will pay $2 million and, more notably, accept ongoing sales limits and reporting obligations that could reshape how local governments pressure gun businesses into tighter compliance.

    The agreement arrives after years of litigation that began in 2022, when Baltimore partnered with the gun-control organization Brady and filed suit as Maryland’s prohibition on unserialized frames and receivers went into effect. The city argued that Baltimore Police had recovered increasing numbers of homemade, untraceable guns every year since 2019, and that the retailer contributed to that trend by offering popular unfinished parts kits without background checks. Baltimore framed the conduct as helping drive the availability of guns later connected to crime.

    What stands out in the current settlement isn’t only the payment amount, but the operational constraints Hanover Armory is accepting going forward. Under the terms announced by the city, the dealer will stop selling:
    – Unserialized gun kits
    – Mechanical conversion devices such as “Glock switches”
    – Bump stocks
    – Forced reset triggers

    That package of restrictions functions like a compliance perimeter around product categories that have become focal points for regulators and plaintiffs. For enforcement, it reduces ambiguity: if the prohibited items are off the shelves by agreement, the city can focus on monitoring and verification rather than debating whether particular products should have been sold in the first place.

    Just as important is the mandatory data-sharing. Hanover Armory has agreed to provide regular purchasing data to Baltimore and to submit comprehensive annual sales reports covering all firearms and firearm accessories. In addition, the dealer must notify the city when a prohibited person or a suspected straw purchaser attempts to buy a firearm at the store.

    Those requirements could materially change the practical relationship between a city and a licensed retailer. Rather than relying primarily on post-recovery tracing after a gun is seized, Baltimore is positioning itself to receive recurring, structured information that may help identify patterns earlier—especially around attempted purchases by people who can’t legally buy guns or appear to be buying for someone else.

    From the dealer-compliance perspective, this is a shift from reactive recordkeeping to proactive reporting. Annual reports documenting accessory sales as well as firearms sales create a broader compliance footprint, and the “suspected purchaser” notification requirement introduces a judgment call that may prompt retailers to formalize internal policies, staff training, and documentation practices to show they are applying consistent standards. In future disputes, the existence of a reporting system can become evidence—either of diligence or of gaps.

    The settlement also changes the risk calculus for both sides by ending an appeal fight that had major stakes. The lawsuit against Hanover Armory went to trial, and a local jury awarded Baltimore $62 million in damages—an amount city officials described at the time as the largest verdict against a gun dealer in U.S. history. Hanover Armory was pursuing an appeal before this week’s settlement was announced. Baltimore City Solicitor Ebony Thompson said the deal reduces the uncertainty tied to that appellate process while turning the earlier verdict into a plan aimed at improving public safety. Thompson also signaled the city intends to keep bringing similar cases.

    The broader liability context matters here. The agreement extends a run of high-dollar outcomes for gun-control advocates and public officials targeting makers and sellers of unfinished firearm parts and kits. In this same Baltimore case, another defendant—Polymer80, an unfinished firearm parts manufacturer based in Nevada—previously reached a $1.2 million settlement with the city in February 2024. Polymer80 later went out of business after facing comparable settlements in other jurisdictions seeking to restrict the self-made firearm supply chain.

    For cities watching from the sidelines, the Baltimore-Hanover Armory settlement offers a template that goes beyond damages: impose specific product bans, require ongoing disclosure, and create a mechanism for monitoring suspicious purchase attempts. Even when cash payments are comparatively smaller than a jury award, the compliance terms can be the larger long-term prize because they can affect sales practices in real time.

    For the gun industry, the message is that civil litigation risk is no longer confined to manufacturers. Retailers can be pulled into expansive theories of responsibility, especially when plaintiffs argue that a seller’s business practices contributed to local crime trends. The practical lesson is that policies around unfinished frames and receivers, conversion devices, and rapid-fire accessories are increasingly being treated as liability landmines—areas where a city can seek not just compensation, but court-enforceable or settlement-enforceable behavioral change.

    Baltimore says the $2 million will be directed to city gun-violence prevention programs. That allocation underscores the dual purpose of these cases: funding and leverage. Money supports prevention efforts, while restrictions and reporting can change what is available for purchase and how quickly officials learn about attempted unlawful transactions.

    Hanover Armory did not respond to a request for comment, according to the reporting. Meanwhile, Baltimore officials are presenting the settlement as both accountability and oversight. Whether other jurisdictions adopt the same playbook may depend on how effectively Baltimore uses the incoming sales data and incident reports—and whether the agreement becomes a reference point in future dealer-liability negotiations nationwide.