And, looking forward to the panel discussion…

“…(and nobody pushed back on the SG’s claims that ghost guns are this huge problem, or that serialization is oh-so-important for criminal investigations),…”

Only a problem for the fascist left that want to confiscate them, before they are used on *them*, that is…

Unfortunately, while Thomas, Alito, and maybe Gorsuch are on board, Roberts clearly is not, and my read is that ACB isn’t either. Kavanaugh also telegraphed that he isn’t either.

What both Robert and ACB are hung up on is the plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the regulation: that if a frame or receiver is less than 100% complete (e.g., only one hole needs to be drilled), it cannot be a “frame or receiver” under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3)(B). Roberts telegraphed his position with his question about “why would someone want to buy a almost finished receiver?” (The answer, of course, is that people want to stay off the government’s radar, but that’s not an answer they can make to the Court.) The answer plaintiffs’ counsel gave (“some people just like to do it themselves”) got toasted by the SG in rebuttal (“if they want to, they can still do that . . . they just have to buy a serialized unfinished receiver through an FFL”).

So Robert and ACB are looking at what they perceive to be the “realities” of the situation (and nobody pushed back on the SG’s claims that ghost guns are this huge problem, or that serialization is oh-so-important for criminal investigations), rather than the hard-edged legal issues (e.g., the “readily convertible” test is for “firearms” under § 921(a)(3)(A), but “frame or receiver” is subsection (B) and does *not* contain that language, thus indicating that Congress did not intend to extend the “readily convertible” concept to frames/receivers).

Not good.

“JUSTICE THOMAS: You make a lot of the
fact that — that you’ve been — this has been
regulated for half a century. But it wasn’t
regulated in this way for half a century.”

The ‘Bruen’ standard! Yes! 😉

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2024/23-852_o759.pdf

Looks like I misread the OP.

As alluded to in my response, merely printing a decal would at least raise the same type of First Amendment claims the Fifth Circuit discussed in the Defense Distributed case. But as that case also shows, there are a lot of liberal judges perfectly willing to underweigh the First Amendment issues because gunz.

Also remember, while you might beat the rap, you can’t beat the ride, and the feds could make you life VERY difficult. Anyone even thinking about doing this needs to get a lawyer (and I’m not it) to give them actual legal advice and be ready to deal with what could be a severe reaction from the feddies.

No.

Whether it is libel, copyright infringement, securities fraud, wire fraud, etc., you can’t just assert that your tortious or criminal conduct is immunized because it also involves verbal or written communication and therefore has First Amendment protection.

The nuances of where the speech / conduct line is would make for a very long post I don’t have the time to write (that’s the kind of question / hypo commonly seen on final exams for law school constitutional law classes), but suffice it to say that what you posit has been tried many, many times, and it doesn’t work.

Now, had Hoover merely posted a picture of his doohickey, or distributed copies of it that were printed on paper, different story. (See the Fifth Circuit’s en banc opinion in Defense Distributed.) But because they were printed on metal, and that metal card was by design “readily convertible” into an illegal Lightning Link, the First Amendment could not save him, just as it doesn’t save con men who try and claim that their unregistered and fraudulent prospectuses are protected speech, or copyright pirates asserting that their distributions of illegal copies are constitutionally protected.

LKB, in your learned opinion concerning Matt Hoover and his ‘Auto-key-card’ boondoggle, conviction, had Matt only sold a decal with the outline of the parts on it, and not a piece of metal with the printing on it, could he have beaten the rap that landed his ass in federal prison on the grounds of 1A free speech?

This is clickbait, and is nowhere near as big a deal as this guy breathlessly posits.

ATF’s reply brief asserted that its 2022 reclassification of a Polymer 80 product (which ATF had ruled in 2017 was not a firearm, and then did a 180 in 2022) was justified because the 2022 product had either holes or index points for drilling the holes for the trigger assembly pins, whereas the 2017 product did not. It turns out that whomever wrote the brief (DOJ Washington) was unaware of an ATF document in the trial court record that contradicts that claim: ATF had acknowledged that the 2022 product had neither holes or index points.

Counsel for VanDerStok immediately brought this to the Solicitor General (“SG”)’s attention, and the SG then did what any good appellate advocate should: promptly write the court and admit/acknowledge the error. (To not do so would be suicidal, as VanDerStok’s counsel would have then be able to bring up not only the false statement but also the SG’s refusal to acknowledge and correct it.)

It’s a screwup that is embarrassing for the SG (I suspect the junior assistant SG responsible for the reply brief is being sacked / demoted / suggested to find new employment, as publicly embarrassing the Big Boss like this on a high profile case can be a career-limiting move), and certainly doesn’t help the ATF’s credibility with the Court. But these kinds of errors do happen in litigation, especially where appellate counsel did not handle the case in the lower courts, and thus is not as familiar with the record. The SG handled it appropriately, and I don’t see how it will materially change the case. (Everyone already understands that the ATF did its ForR reinterpretation to get a result the administration could not get through Congress, and no one seriously believes the claims that it was a legitimate, non-partisan re-evaluation.)

In VanDerStok Supreme Court case, the DOJ filed a letter admitting to making a false statement in the case. Mark Smith Four Boxes Diner discusses.

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBz2ceLyoI