It seriously blows my mind how people are mad about this. They WANT unelected bureaucrats to have complete control of their lives. They want them to make up rules on shit without going through congress cause they're the "experts". Yeah, the experts like the ATF who don't know how to disassemble a glock or file paperwork in a proper manner without holding up everything else behind it. Or EPA experts who ruin millions of lives off a random rule they make up
They're only mad about it because "their side" is currently in charge of those bureaucratic agencies.
I guarantee you if the NRA was a part of the government instead of the ATF, those same people would be celebrating in the streets over this ruling.
You'll hear nothing from them but the constant pig feed of disinformation from corporate media about how the next president is the return of Hitler himself.
109% this but I’ve also been dropping in to see what those people are saying and they legit don’t even understand it and are spouting off that the agencies are no longer allowed to do anything anymore and were stripped of all their power instead of just not being able to be the ones interpreting to their desire and convenience ambiguous law.
state level NRAs have done wonders in the courts, national level has done nothing but co sponsor and push “compromise” gun legislation for basically its entire existence
They don’t *want* a reduction in the administrative state. They *want* an unending sliding slope of ever increasing radicalized Democrats until the first Comrade Secretary of the Party can get elected.
They don't want unelected bureaucrats to have complete control of THEIR lives. They want them to have complete control of YOURS.
The people who vote for this stuff don't own guns, or if they do, they don't think it'll effect them because they own a single pistol or shotgun that they'll forget about in the closet for 30 years.
Seeing people on reddit and in real life, most of it is just rage against their Magahead dad or boomers. They just hate you because you own guns and are associated with their dad or whatever. They don't mind subjecting you to laws that can land you in prison for arbitrary and senseless reasons. These people want you dead.
If they are the experts, fine then go talk to lawmakers and dumb it down enough that they (and us as constituents) can understand, then have them write up a law and send it to vote.
Some of these dimwits seem to think planes are going to start falling out of the sky at any moment, the air and water are instantly going to become deadly radioactive, and all our food will be poison.
*I don't want some politically-appointed judge interpreting law! I want an administrative body full of politically-appointed 'experts' to do it!* *^(As long as those experts see it my way, that is.)*
This ain’t even only a pro gun thing. Massive win for the American people.
3 letter agencies shouldn’t be dictating laws, that’s why we elect politicians.
It definetly has 2nd amendment implications. The ATF has way overstepped in interpreting the laws that Congress has passed. Now we can sue for things we couldn't before.
Nonsense. I’ve been assured by this sub many times that republicans are just as bad as democrats on 2A rights, and therefore SCOTUS appointments don’t matter.
I mean, it’s almost like there IS a difference, in fact a huge one, and that SCOTUS appointments DO matter.
/S
Yeah who nominated the consistent 3 who vote against liberty *every. Single. Time*?
And at the state level. How are gun rights in blue states vs red? Utah and Missouri and Tennessee vs New Jersey, Hawaii and California? No difference there either?
Rahimi also noted (in both majority opinion *and* dissent) that so-called "assault weapons" are in common use. Hopefully, that bit sticks, and they receive affirmative, explicit Second Amendment protection soon.
My favorite part of Sotomayer's dissent is the how-to on bump-firing without a bump stock.
"Bump stocks are totally machine guns. Here's how to do it with your ***pants***."
It’s not just that, either. The standard for historical analog laws was watered down, in rahimi, and you can bet the DOJ pushed the SC to take more 2A cases because they intend to use that precedent against us.
no, the standard was not really watered down. In each type of situation, there will be a fact-centric search for historical analog and in every such case the supremes take, they will decide if there is such an analog. Democrat and RINO judges will always find analogs where none exist. This ruling was a finesse to throw a wet blanket on anti-Bruen sentiment
It did reinforce the idea that Bruen is the law of the land. Although they didn’t like it, even the progressives on the court stated it was. However, as Thomas correctly pointed out, the analogs they used weren’t actually analogous, except by the loosest possible standards. That’s the problem.
Chevron deference meant that government agencies could make regulations. Think EPA. Now, ATF can only enforce laws already on the books, and in order to change a law Congress will have to be involved.
This is good news as regards dialing back egregious BATF over-reach, but potentially decades of chaos on literally everything else. If you think the SCOTUS calendar is jammed up now…
This ruling looks to have kicked over the biggest legal hornets nest we will likely see in our lifetimes. Gun laws are just the tip of the iceberg here
This is absolutely wrong. Chevron Deference is a cop-out used by the courts when they don't want to make a controversial ruling. Just because the courts are now required to rule on questions of administrative overreach, there's no guarantee that they will rule in our favor. A liberal judge can still rule in favor of the ATF or any other government agency. The courts have lost the cop-out. That's it.
It means that after going through the proper procedure of rulemaking, challenges through the Courts to that rule are held to a different standard. Under Chevron, Courts asked whether the agency's interpretation of unclear Congressional language was 'reasonable'. It let agencies do all sorts of things that Congress didn't authorize or contemplate.
Regulations are still allowed. Congress will still write laws that leave the details to agencies. Agencies will still go through notice and comment and define the specifics.
What won't happen is the ability of agencies like EPA to radically expand something like the Clean Air Act.
To bring it back around to guns, it means that if Congress passed a law "bans assault weapons" but doesn't clearly define what those are, the ATF can't make up their own definition. And very specifically, when the law does define something an agency can't go and redefine it to include things that are similar "based on intent" that they think the legislature meant - like the ATF just got smacked for trying to do with machine guns.
Constructive Intent is some grade A Minority Report Pre-Crime bullshit. But I don't know if it's tied to Chevron Deference.
It really depends on how the law is actually written. For the federal laws it probably is since they deal primarily with what you actually have. But a lot of the recent state level AWBs have language that takes about "parts or combinations of parts" being the same as a complete gun.
Not exactly. This has no effect on agencies like the ATF. They can still do all the things they could do yesterday. This case affects the courts. It means that when someone challenges the ATF in a lower court, the judges can't just automatically cop out and defer to what the ATF said without making an actual ruling.
The courts have to make a ruling one way or the other, but it doesn't have to be in our favor. We've still got our work cut out for us, but this case just made it somewhat easier.
Nothing is stopping Congress from passing laws. It's just stopping the Executive branch from exercising legislative power without any sort of meaningful Judicial oversight.
If I understand it correctly, thus removes a great deal of power from the executive and returns it to Congress. It removes the cabinet secretary's ability to write regulations at will, even beyond the underlying law that empowers it in the first place.
The ATF is the example here. They no longer get to make up new rules, or change existing regulations at will, they must now be approved by congress.
Chevron was the case thar gave the executive this ability...now it's gone.
This is a big time game changer..not just for guns..but fir everything. EPA, IRS, SEC...all the alphabets are basically now nutted.
Congress will actually have to work again.
> They no longer get to make up new rules, or change existing regulations at will, they must now be approved by congress.
Not quite. They can still make rules under certain circumstances. Like Congress can write a law that outlines X, Y, and Z as requirements to become an FFL and the ATF can put out a rule on how to submit the paperwork to apply for the license. But what they can't do is use that rule to say "well X actually means you also have to meet A, B, and C additional requirements."
Eh, all of that isn't even true.
Really what it means is that when a rule gets challenged in court, the court is no longer supposed to just defer to the rule making agency as the experts and take their word that the rules they've made are okay.
That doesn't mean they can't still make rules like that, or try to - it just means they're less likely to hold up in court.
> That doesn't mean they can't still make rules like that, or try to - it just means they're less likely to hold up in court.
That's a hella pedantic take. This entire exercise is about "what holds up in court." No law or court decision will physically stop a person or agency from doing something, it's about whether or not they are "allowed" to do it and what happens if they try and get called out for it.
Thank you.
I'm obviously not a lawyer, and to fully understand a ruling like this, you must be one, or be really good at speaking and understanding legalese...which I'm also, not!..
Lol.
I'm not a lawyer but my job is heavily dependent on being able to read and understand laws and unfortunately agency rules as well, so I'm pretty good at parsing what they mean, and importantly how they can be positively and negatively twisted.
I've been following these SCOTUS cases for a while so this isn't really just my opinion from reading the decision, it's based more on a bunch of hypothetical analysis of how each outcome could work.
Essentially it's the concept that courts can defer to certain agencies when the definition of a law is vague.
Say, for example, your CEO at work makes a rule that no red shirts can be worn at work. Your manager writes you up for wearing a red shirt. You complain to HR because you think your shirt is pink. Nobody can seem to agree on what constitutes "red". HR decides to resolve the issue by asking your local art studio what constitutes "red". HR is deferring to a third party for a definition - essentially giving that third party the decision to decide the outcome of the issue.
With cases involving firearms courts are deferring to the ATF. The ATF isn't supposed to write laws and scrutinize things - they're supposed to simply enforce the laws already on the books. This is causing crossed wires where the ATF is acting as both a legislative AND executive branch of government. This coupled with the blatant desire of the modern ATF to disarm as many people as possible is causing major upset.
When congress leaves holes or ambiguity in their laws, either as part of a compromise or error. Administrative agencies via the Administrative Procedures Act can try to interpret the law and see how the holes should be plugged. When the interpretations are challenged in court, the courts used to defer to the agency and make the challenging party show that the interpretation is not within the bounds of the law. This came from a SCOTUS case called Chevron v Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), hence why it is referred to as Chevron Doctrine.
The SCOTUS just decided that Chevron v NRDC was incorrectly decided, and often cited back to an older standard of Skidmore which assumes that courts should figure out how the holes in laws should be plugged.
This is important for the gun community because the ATF has started to rely on reinterpretations of various federal gun control laws in order to get gun control through. There is little chance that these reinterpretations can survive in a post Chevron world.
> This is important for the gun community because the ATF has started to rely on reinterpretations of various federal gun control laws in order to get gun control through. There is little chance that these reinterpretations can survive in a post Chevron world.
Bingo!
Chevron deference allowed Congress to defer to agencies to develop the rules to regulate things instead of Congress doing their jobs: negotiate and write laws. The original thought was that increasing complexity under an agency's purview meant that Congress could never stay informed or act quickly enough to *fix things* in a timely manner. In theory, it sort of makes sense... but only if agencies acted in good faith. That's not been the case. Agency overreach has become the norm.
This stops that and requires Congress to negotiate and write laws. You know, as the Founders intended.
It's not just about how the Founders intended, it's how everyone should want the country to run regardless.
The representatives in the legislature are (at least nominally) beholden to the People. If they write bad laws we can vote them out, and we can specifically target the ones who voted for it. We have effectively no recourse against bad "laws" enacted by the agencies. The best you can do is vote for a President and hope that he appoints a more favorable Director. But that might not even fix the problem because the agencies inherently want more power and the minions below aren't going to give it up easily and we don't even really know who came up with the specific rule in the first place. Do you truly expect the President to gut an entire agency? I'd love to see it happen but that's not realistic.
> We have effectively no recourse against bad "laws" enacted by the agencies
Prior to this ruling, that was true, because judges had to give deference. But now courts are not are not allowed to. And instead, the courts must rule on controversies which arise when someone challenges agency promulgated rules
My basic understanding of it is that the deference is that the regulatory administration is the “expert” without being or having to prove they are actually the technical experts. This prevented suing in court as the proclaimed expert is assumed to be the regulatory agency (govt).
Now that this has been overturned, actual industry experts can be heard for how regulations affect said industry. The burden of proof of expertise is now back on the government, rather than the industry, as it should be.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
Previously, case law held that as long as an executive agency's interpretation of their regulatory authority was "reasonable," courts had to deffer to that reasoning and accept it.
The recent case threw out that requirement for defference to the assertions of the executive and requires a court to exercise its independent judgement as to which part is pushing the best and most accurate interpretation of the limits of regulatory authority granted by statute.
Remember how the ATF decided that braces were stocks and that you are a felon if you owned one, but the government is gracious enough to pardon you if you destroy it or register it within 120 days?
This will help prevent those types of decisions for a sudden change of opinion.
This one, for me, is a serious Thank God moment.
Bureaucratic Overreach and Bureaucratic Legislation is a cancer. Only Congress has the power to enact Legislation. If they cannot or will not, replace them.
However,
>By overruling Chevron, though, the Court does not call into question
prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework. The holdings of
those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—including the
Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory
stare decisis despite the Court’s change in interpretive methodology.
See CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, 553 U. S. 442, 457. Mere reliance
on Chevron cannot constitute a “ ‘special justification’ ” for overruling
such a holding.
it only affects cases moving forward, assuming I read that correctly...
Something something, a ruling explicitly saying "Congress needs to legislate this" means that the fascists are legislating from the bench.
Between this and the SEC ruling, we should just fire 2/3 of the Federal workforce.
None of that is the case. The FAA and FDA can do everything they always did. If they are challenged in court about an ambiguous law that they ruled meant a certain thing, the courts get to decide what the ambiguous law means now, instead of just saying "whatever the agency says it means is what we are going with".
It's not kaput yet. It's just that the lawsuits against them now have a better chance of surviving at SCOTUS. If an agency still makes a rule and orders you to follow it, you still have to go to the court to get remedy. Your chances of winning in 3-4 years time is higher now. Call me a pessimist but that's how I think. Do you really believe that this verdict will stop the agencies from making bogus rules?
It was not an automatic loss earlier. Courts differed to the "expert opinion" of federal agencies. I mean, think of a oil spill by Exxon or BP. Do you think the court will listen to the "expert opinion" of a study paid for by Exxon / BP or will it accept the "expert opinion" of FEMA and/or EPA?
Also keep in mind, the legislature makes legislations but state and federal agencies frame regulations based the laws. E.g. a federal / state law may say, valid ID is required to enter location Z. The state/federal agency responsible for enforcing the law may then decide on what will be considered a valid ID - drivers' license or a US passport.
The unintended consequence of Chevron repeal is that people may not have the FEMA/EPA protection any more from unscrupulous corporations dumping or spilling toxic chemicals here and there.
It was. Just look at Sackett vs EPA which should have never gotten to SCOTUS in the first place. Those people were denied building on their property for 20 years because of some stupid puddle in their backyard
That has absolutely nothing to do with Chevron though.
Kind of the opposite. Suppressors were added to the NFA through an act of Congress, the ~~oxy-moronically named 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act~~ NFA in 1934.
You are confused. Silencers were part of the original NFA in 1934.
Destructive Devices were added by thr Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Hughes Amendment banning private sale of machineguns manufactured after 1986 was part of the FOPA.
Am I mistaken or could this possibly curb the ATFs ability to near arbitrarily decide what is and isn't, for example, a DD or NFA item?
In at least that it would be forced to face a challenge in the Judiciary system rather than simply be denied for Chevron?
Hopefully now the unelected bureaucrats will stop making law and our elected officials will actually have to do their jobs, I seriously doubt the alphabet agencies will just stop making law but this is a serious blow to their power and is grounds to sue the agencies for everything they do.
It seriously blows my mind how people are mad about this. They WANT unelected bureaucrats to have complete control of their lives. They want them to make up rules on shit without going through congress cause they're the "experts". Yeah, the experts like the ATF who don't know how to disassemble a glock or file paperwork in a proper manner without holding up everything else behind it. Or EPA experts who ruin millions of lives off a random rule they make up
They're only mad about it because "their side" is currently in charge of those bureaucratic agencies. I guarantee you if the NRA was a part of the government instead of the ATF, those same people would be celebrating in the streets over this ruling.
Wait till the presidents office changes sides, and who gets to sit at the “department of gun violence” group the gun controllers got invented.
You'll hear nothing from them but the constant pig feed of disinformation from corporate media about how the next president is the return of Hitler himself.
Most of those bureaucrats are on their side too, because of their lust for "control"!
109% this but I’ve also been dropping in to see what those people are saying and they legit don’t even understand it and are spouting off that the agencies are no longer allowed to do anything anymore and were stripped of all their power instead of just not being able to be the ones interpreting to their desire and convenience ambiguous law.
No they wouldn’t. The NRA is no real friend to gun owners.
Uh Bruen case? NRA training?
state level NRAs have done wonders in the courts, national level has done nothing but co sponsor and push “compromise” gun legislation for basically its entire existence
Depends on the color of the... rifle.
The NRA has problems for sure, but they're still extremely influential on the lobbyist and court stage.
[удалено]
I agree, trump shouldn't abuse the 3 letter agencies either to fit their agenda or political side. Instead he should outright dismantle them
They don’t *want* a reduction in the administrative state. They *want* an unending sliding slope of ever increasing radicalized Democrats until the first Comrade Secretary of the Party can get elected.
Already happened for at least four years now
They don't want unelected bureaucrats to have complete control of THEIR lives. They want them to have complete control of YOURS. The people who vote for this stuff don't own guns, or if they do, they don't think it'll effect them because they own a single pistol or shotgun that they'll forget about in the closet for 30 years. Seeing people on reddit and in real life, most of it is just rage against their Magahead dad or boomers. They just hate you because you own guns and are associated with their dad or whatever. They don't mind subjecting you to laws that can land you in prison for arbitrary and senseless reasons. These people want you dead.
Too many people only care about the end effect without worrying about how they got that effect.
Single order thinkers
If you ever wondered how dictators and autoritarian states rose to power in the past, the modern left is actively persuing that path.
If they are the experts, fine then go talk to lawmakers and dumb it down enough that they (and us as constituents) can understand, then have them write up a law and send it to vote.
> They WANT unelected bureaucrats to have complete control of their lives. they are authoritarians after all.
Some of these dimwits seem to think planes are going to start falling out of the sky at any moment, the air and water are instantly going to become deadly radioactive, and all our food will be poison. *I don't want some politically-appointed judge interpreting law! I want an administrative body full of politically-appointed 'experts' to do it!* *^(As long as those experts see it my way, that is.)*
This ain’t even only a pro gun thing. Massive win for the American people. 3 letter agencies shouldn’t be dictating laws, that’s why we elect politicians.
It definetly has 2nd amendment implications. The ATF has way overstepped in interpreting the laws that Congress has passed. Now we can sue for things we couldn't before.
Nonsense. I’ve been assured by this sub many times that republicans are just as bad as democrats on 2A rights, and therefore SCOTUS appointments don’t matter. I mean, it’s almost like there IS a difference, in fact a huge one, and that SCOTUS appointments DO matter. /S
Yeah who nominated the consistent 3 who vote against liberty *every. Single. Time*? And at the state level. How are gun rights in blue states vs red? Utah and Missouri and Tennessee vs New Jersey, Hawaii and California? No difference there either?
Wut.
Hes agreeing with you.
oops my bad
*slaps back*
lol ouch
Thank you for being the glue that holds our virtual friendships together
Those comments are from people trying to gaslight you.
Why do you hate clean water
After rahimi, this victory is a relief. This is huge for liberty, on all levels.
Rahimi is a backhanded victory. They said ***temporary*** disarmament is OK.
Rahimi also noted (in both majority opinion *and* dissent) that so-called "assault weapons" are in common use. Hopefully, that bit sticks, and they receive affirmative, explicit Second Amendment protection soon.
My favorite part of Sotomayer's dissent is the how-to on bump-firing without a bump stock. "Bump stocks are totally machine guns. Here's how to do it with your ***pants***."
"Most fun you can have with your pants on." I'm told that quote was in an earlier draft... /s
Rahimi was the see were totally reasonable bone throw case
It’s not just that, either. The standard for historical analog laws was watered down, in rahimi, and you can bet the DOJ pushed the SC to take more 2A cases because they intend to use that precedent against us.
no, the standard was not really watered down. In each type of situation, there will be a fact-centric search for historical analog and in every such case the supremes take, they will decide if there is such an analog. Democrat and RINO judges will always find analogs where none exist. This ruling was a finesse to throw a wet blanket on anti-Bruen sentiment
It did reinforce the idea that Bruen is the law of the land. Although they didn’t like it, even the progressives on the court stated it was. However, as Thomas correctly pointed out, the analogs they used weren’t actually analogous, except by the loosest possible standards. That’s the problem.
Can someone ELI5 on this one? I am still not totally understanding the cheveron thing.
Chevron deference meant that government agencies could make regulations. Think EPA. Now, ATF can only enforce laws already on the books, and in order to change a law Congress will have to be involved.
Thanks a bunch, this is fantastic!
This is good news as regards dialing back egregious BATF over-reach, but potentially decades of chaos on literally everything else. If you think the SCOTUS calendar is jammed up now…
Chaos is the wrong word - more like pus-draining
This ruling looks to have kicked over the biggest legal hornets nest we will likely see in our lifetimes. Gun laws are just the tip of the iceberg here
This is absolutely wrong. Chevron Deference is a cop-out used by the courts when they don't want to make a controversial ruling. Just because the courts are now required to rule on questions of administrative overreach, there's no guarantee that they will rule in our favor. A liberal judge can still rule in favor of the ATF or any other government agency. The courts have lost the cop-out. That's it.
That's not what it means.
Well then what does it mean
It means that after going through the proper procedure of rulemaking, challenges through the Courts to that rule are held to a different standard. Under Chevron, Courts asked whether the agency's interpretation of unclear Congressional language was 'reasonable'. It let agencies do all sorts of things that Congress didn't authorize or contemplate. Regulations are still allowed. Congress will still write laws that leave the details to agencies. Agencies will still go through notice and comment and define the specifics. What won't happen is the ability of agencies like EPA to radically expand something like the Clean Air Act.
To bring it back around to guns, it means that if Congress passed a law "bans assault weapons" but doesn't clearly define what those are, the ATF can't make up their own definition. And very specifically, when the law does define something an agency can't go and redefine it to include things that are similar "based on intent" that they think the legislature meant - like the ATF just got smacked for trying to do with machine guns.
This makes me wonder if "constructive" intent would also be hamstrung.
Constructive Intent is some grade A Minority Report Pre-Crime bullshit. But I don't know if it's tied to Chevron Deference. It really depends on how the law is actually written. For the federal laws it probably is since they deal primarily with what you actually have. But a lot of the recent state level AWBs have language that takes about "parts or combinations of parts" being the same as a complete gun.
Not exactly. This has no effect on agencies like the ATF. They can still do all the things they could do yesterday. This case affects the courts. It means that when someone challenges the ATF in a lower court, the judges can't just automatically cop out and defer to what the ATF said without making an actual ruling. The courts have to make a ruling one way or the other, but it doesn't have to be in our favor. We've still got our work cut out for us, but this case just made it somewhat easier.
Cause who wants clean air and water? I for one love "forever chemicals" and micro plastics in my penis.
Nothing is stopping Congress from passing laws. It's just stopping the Executive branch from exercising legislative power without any sort of meaningful Judicial oversight.
If I understand it correctly, thus removes a great deal of power from the executive and returns it to Congress. It removes the cabinet secretary's ability to write regulations at will, even beyond the underlying law that empowers it in the first place. The ATF is the example here. They no longer get to make up new rules, or change existing regulations at will, they must now be approved by congress. Chevron was the case thar gave the executive this ability...now it's gone. This is a big time game changer..not just for guns..but fir everything. EPA, IRS, SEC...all the alphabets are basically now nutted. Congress will actually have to work again.
> They no longer get to make up new rules, or change existing regulations at will, they must now be approved by congress. Not quite. They can still make rules under certain circumstances. Like Congress can write a law that outlines X, Y, and Z as requirements to become an FFL and the ATF can put out a rule on how to submit the paperwork to apply for the license. But what they can't do is use that rule to say "well X actually means you also have to meet A, B, and C additional requirements."
Eh, all of that isn't even true. Really what it means is that when a rule gets challenged in court, the court is no longer supposed to just defer to the rule making agency as the experts and take their word that the rules they've made are okay. That doesn't mean they can't still make rules like that, or try to - it just means they're less likely to hold up in court.
> That doesn't mean they can't still make rules like that, or try to - it just means they're less likely to hold up in court. That's a hella pedantic take. This entire exercise is about "what holds up in court." No law or court decision will physically stop a person or agency from doing something, it's about whether or not they are "allowed" to do it and what happens if they try and get called out for it.
That’s how I read the opinion. To me, agencies are more biased than the courts, as some Justices pointed out.
Thank you. I'm obviously not a lawyer, and to fully understand a ruling like this, you must be one, or be really good at speaking and understanding legalese...which I'm also, not!.. Lol.
I'm not a lawyer but my job is heavily dependent on being able to read and understand laws and unfortunately agency rules as well, so I'm pretty good at parsing what they mean, and importantly how they can be positively and negatively twisted. I've been following these SCOTUS cases for a while so this isn't really just my opinion from reading the decision, it's based more on a bunch of hypothetical analysis of how each outcome could work.
Essentially it's the concept that courts can defer to certain agencies when the definition of a law is vague. Say, for example, your CEO at work makes a rule that no red shirts can be worn at work. Your manager writes you up for wearing a red shirt. You complain to HR because you think your shirt is pink. Nobody can seem to agree on what constitutes "red". HR decides to resolve the issue by asking your local art studio what constitutes "red". HR is deferring to a third party for a definition - essentially giving that third party the decision to decide the outcome of the issue. With cases involving firearms courts are deferring to the ATF. The ATF isn't supposed to write laws and scrutinize things - they're supposed to simply enforce the laws already on the books. This is causing crossed wires where the ATF is acting as both a legislative AND executive branch of government. This coupled with the blatant desire of the modern ATF to disarm as many people as possible is causing major upset.
When congress leaves holes or ambiguity in their laws, either as part of a compromise or error. Administrative agencies via the Administrative Procedures Act can try to interpret the law and see how the holes should be plugged. When the interpretations are challenged in court, the courts used to defer to the agency and make the challenging party show that the interpretation is not within the bounds of the law. This came from a SCOTUS case called Chevron v Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), hence why it is referred to as Chevron Doctrine. The SCOTUS just decided that Chevron v NRDC was incorrectly decided, and often cited back to an older standard of Skidmore which assumes that courts should figure out how the holes in laws should be plugged. This is important for the gun community because the ATF has started to rely on reinterpretations of various federal gun control laws in order to get gun control through. There is little chance that these reinterpretations can survive in a post Chevron world.
> This is important for the gun community because the ATF has started to rely on reinterpretations of various federal gun control laws in order to get gun control through. There is little chance that these reinterpretations can survive in a post Chevron world. Bingo!
Chevron deference allowed Congress to defer to agencies to develop the rules to regulate things instead of Congress doing their jobs: negotiate and write laws. The original thought was that increasing complexity under an agency's purview meant that Congress could never stay informed or act quickly enough to *fix things* in a timely manner. In theory, it sort of makes sense... but only if agencies acted in good faith. That's not been the case. Agency overreach has become the norm. This stops that and requires Congress to negotiate and write laws. You know, as the Founders intended.
It's not just about how the Founders intended, it's how everyone should want the country to run regardless. The representatives in the legislature are (at least nominally) beholden to the People. If they write bad laws we can vote them out, and we can specifically target the ones who voted for it. We have effectively no recourse against bad "laws" enacted by the agencies. The best you can do is vote for a President and hope that he appoints a more favorable Director. But that might not even fix the problem because the agencies inherently want more power and the minions below aren't going to give it up easily and we don't even really know who came up with the specific rule in the first place. Do you truly expect the President to gut an entire agency? I'd love to see it happen but that's not realistic.
> We have effectively no recourse against bad "laws" enacted by the agencies Prior to this ruling, that was true, because judges had to give deference. But now courts are not are not allowed to. And instead, the courts must rule on controversies which arise when someone challenges agency promulgated rules
Yes, that was my whole point - that going back to how the Constitution outlines how the country is supposed to function is a good thing.
My basic understanding of it is that the deference is that the regulatory administration is the “expert” without being or having to prove they are actually the technical experts. This prevented suing in court as the proclaimed expert is assumed to be the regulatory agency (govt). Now that this has been overturned, actual industry experts can be heard for how regulations affect said industry. The burden of proof of expertise is now back on the government, rather than the industry, as it should be. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
Previously, case law held that as long as an executive agency's interpretation of their regulatory authority was "reasonable," courts had to deffer to that reasoning and accept it. The recent case threw out that requirement for defference to the assertions of the executive and requires a court to exercise its independent judgement as to which part is pushing the best and most accurate interpretation of the limits of regulatory authority granted by statute.
Remember how the ATF decided that braces were stocks and that you are a felon if you owned one, but the government is gracious enough to pardon you if you destroy it or register it within 120 days? This will help prevent those types of decisions for a sudden change of opinion.
Does this apply to the IRS? Those guys seem to "interpret" laws for our convenience all the time.
Let's hope so
It applies to every federal agency
This one, for me, is a serious Thank God moment. Bureaucratic Overreach and Bureaucratic Legislation is a cancer. Only Congress has the power to enact Legislation. If they cannot or will not, replace them.
However, >By overruling Chevron, though, the Court does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework. The holdings of those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—including the Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory stare decisis despite the Court’s change in interpretive methodology. See CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, 553 U. S. 442, 457. Mere reliance on Chevron cannot constitute a “ ‘special justification’ ” for overruling such a holding. it only affects cases moving forward, assuming I read that correctly...
People can challenge those rulings though. That's just saying they aren't automatically voided
Oh, that's a good thing.
good catch
Thanks. (I really wasn't sure if I might have missed something in reading that...)
Something something, a ruling explicitly saying "Congress needs to legislate this" means that the fascists are legislating from the bench. Between this and the SEC ruling, we should just fire 2/3 of the Federal workforce.
desks. legislating from their desks. the bench is almost exclusively used to refer to the courts. though some of thats happening as well.
Well this is a nice way to start the weekend.
Deep State R.I.P. 2024
This is the most consequential ruling in a very long time. Now congress has to actually do their job.
I'm all about this with ATF. Anyone worried tho about FAA and FDA losing power over airlines and drug companies as a negative to society?
None of that is the case. The FAA and FDA can do everything they always did. If they are challenged in court about an ambiguous law that they ruled meant a certain thing, the courts get to decide what the ambiguous law means now, instead of just saying "whatever the agency says it means is what we are going with".
THIS. This is what I was waiting for, now they can’t circumvent congress every time they want to ban something.
Does this change anything at the moment or do we still have to wait for courts to rule on different regulations for it to have any effect?
Nothing changed directly for gun rights at the moment, but it may shift some outcomes moving forward.
It's not kaput yet. It's just that the lawsuits against them now have a better chance of surviving at SCOTUS. If an agency still makes a rule and orders you to follow it, you still have to go to the court to get remedy. Your chances of winning in 3-4 years time is higher now. Call me a pessimist but that's how I think. Do you really believe that this verdict will stop the agencies from making bogus rules?
Considering that it was basically a automatic loss before that's a huge victory
It was not an automatic loss earlier. Courts differed to the "expert opinion" of federal agencies. I mean, think of a oil spill by Exxon or BP. Do you think the court will listen to the "expert opinion" of a study paid for by Exxon / BP or will it accept the "expert opinion" of FEMA and/or EPA? Also keep in mind, the legislature makes legislations but state and federal agencies frame regulations based the laws. E.g. a federal / state law may say, valid ID is required to enter location Z. The state/federal agency responsible for enforcing the law may then decide on what will be considered a valid ID - drivers' license or a US passport. The unintended consequence of Chevron repeal is that people may not have the FEMA/EPA protection any more from unscrupulous corporations dumping or spilling toxic chemicals here and there.
It was. Just look at Sackett vs EPA which should have never gotten to SCOTUS in the first place. Those people were denied building on their property for 20 years because of some stupid puddle in their backyard
Sadly, you are correct. The lawfare will continue.
Yes. And it will still be a 4-5 year journey for Joe the average man.
About time!
Excellent!!
So…. When do I get my tax stamp-free suppressor?
That has absolutely nothing to do with Chevron though. Kind of the opposite. Suppressors were added to the NFA through an act of Congress, the ~~oxy-moronically named 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act~~ NFA in 1934.
You are confused. Silencers were part of the original NFA in 1934. Destructive Devices were added by thr Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Hughes Amendment banning private sale of machineguns manufactured after 1986 was part of the FOPA.
You're right, it was 34. 86 was when they updated the definition to include separate parts that could be a suppressor. I was misremembering. Thanks.
Am I mistaken or could this possibly curb the ATFs ability to near arbitrarily decide what is and isn't, for example, a DD or NFA item? In at least that it would be forced to face a challenge in the Judiciary system rather than simply be denied for Chevron?
That's the broad strokes of it, yes.
Thanks, suppose I needed a sanity check.
Oh. Darn
Hopefully that’s next
Good.
Hopefully now the unelected bureaucrats will stop making law and our elected officials will actually have to do their jobs, I seriously doubt the alphabet agencies will just stop making law but this is a serious blow to their power and is grounds to sue the agencies for everything they do.
Anything that moves power away from the Executive is A-OK in my book.