By Jonathan Stempel
Aug 21 (Reuters) – A federal appeals court threw out on Friday a lawsuit by California and the Giffords gun control advocacy group claiming that a Biden administration-era rule to curtail the production of illegal, largely untraceable “ghost guns” was not strict enough.
Reversing a lower court ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco voted 3-0 that California and Giffords did not show the rule’s treatment of partially completed receivers, or frames, for AR-15 type semi-automatic rifles caused them harm.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Giffords and lawyers involved in their appeal did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ghost guns lack serial numbers and can be acquired without background checks. This can allow people otherwise ineligible to buy firearms to purchase components they can build into finished guns.
The decision came four days after U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, found the 2022 rule adopted during former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration violated people’s constitutional right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Republican President Donald Trump has supported more expansive gun rights than his predecessor, but the Trump administration defended the ghost gun rule in court.
CLAIMED HARM DEEMED SPECULATIVE
California and Giffords objected to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) treating partially completed receivers as firearms only if they were sold with tools or jigs that could make them functional — even though people could buy those components separately.
In February 2024, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen found ATF’s interpretation arbitrary and capricious.
Circuit Judge Eric Tung, however, said California did not show that ATF forced it to spend more to train law enforcement and speed up its own ghost gun legislation, while Giffords did not show that ATF undermined the nonprofit’s core mission and forced it to spend more combating the guns’ proliferation.
He also said most of the alleged harm predated the rule, and California and Giffords could not sue based on “speculation” that wrongdoers would exploit the alleged loophole.
Tung is a Trump appointee. He was joined by Circuit judges Holly Thomas and Anthony Johnstone, both Biden appointees. Chen was appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama.
In March 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed O’Connor’s earlier ruling striking down the rule, but on the ground that ATF exceeded its authority in adopting it.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Rod Nickel)
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