Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Federal Ban on Interstate Handgun Sales

A federal appeals court has ruled that the longstanding federal ban on buying handguns directly from a licensed dealer in another state violates the Second Amendment.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Friday in Elite Precision Customs v. ATF, striking down the law and reversing a lower court decision that had upheld it. The court rendered judgment for the plaintiffs.

Under the challenged federal law, people could not buy handguns directly from licensed dealers outside their home state. Federal law already allowed interstate purchases of rifles and shotguns, but handgun buyers instead had to route the purchase through a dealer in their own state willing to handle the transfer — a step that often added fees and delays.

The majority found that the right to keep arms necessarily includes the right to purchase them, and that the ban therefore implicates the Second Amendment. It went on to conclude that the government’s historical examples were too different from the modern law to justify a blanket ban on direct interstate handgun sales.

The court’s opinion stated plainly: “The Ban sullies the plain text of the Second Amendment and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation.”

Judge Haynes dissented in three sentences, writing that she agreed with the district court that the challenged provisions “are not unconstitutional under the Second Amendment” and that this was “all that is in play in this case.” She would have affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

A win claimed by gun-rights advocates

The case was brought by Elite Precision Customs and co-plaintiffs represented by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), a nonprofit that has pursued a string of Second Amendment challenges in federal court. FPC called the ruling “a major victory.”

FPC President Brandon Combs described the decision as “a massive victory for the People and another major defeat for the federal government’s unconstitutional gun-control regime.”

“Your right to keep and bear arms does not stop at your state line, and the government cannot make you pay a penalty just to exercise it. The Fifth Circuit got it exactly right: this is a purchase ban, it is presumptively unconstitutional, and the government failed to justify it. We told the federal government we were coming for this ban, and today we beat them.”

Combs added: “This is what it looks like to Fight Forward. This is how we win — case by case, precedent by precedent, taking away the government’s tools for violating the People’s rights. We and our FPC Grassroots Army will keep stacking victories until every one of these immoral and unconstitutional restrictions is eliminated.”

What comes next

The ruling arrives weeks after another federal court struck down parts of the National Firearms Act covering suppressors, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns.

Friday’s decision also creates a split with the Second Circuit, which has ruled differently on the same underlying question. That divide makes further appellate review, potentially at the Supreme Court, more likely.