A federal appeals court has struck down the 1968 federal ban that blocked Americans from buying handguns directly across state lines.

The Fifth Circuit ruled Friday that the ban violates the Second Amendment, reversing a lower-court loss for the gun owners and dealer who brought the case.

The decision is a major victory for lawful gun buyers — and another reminder that a constitutional right does not disappear because Washington has burdened it for decades.

The court’s holding was direct:

The case, Elite Precision Customs LLC v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was brought by a Texas firearms dealer, two out-of-state customers and the Firearms Policy Coalition.

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Federal law allowed the customers to buy long guns under certain conditions, but it barred them from taking direct possession of a handgun from a licensed dealer outside their home state.

Instead, the handgun had to be shipped to another federally licensed dealer in the buyer’s state. That extra step could add fees, delays and the risk that a third-party dealer would simply refuse the transfer.

The Fifth Circuit’s opinion held that the right to keep firearms necessarily includes the right to purchase them. The court said the interstate rule was not a modest sales condition; it was a categorical ban on an entire class of direct purchases.

Under the Supreme Court’s Bruen framework, once the Second Amendment’s text covers the conduct, the government must show that its restriction fits the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

The government offered colonial and early-American laws involving wartime arms controls, exports between separate sovereigns, gunpowder inspections and sales to hostile groups. The Fifth Circuit found those examples too far removed from a modern ban on lawful handgun purchases between residents of different states.

Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the plaintiffs, announced the win shortly after the decision was filed.

The Firearms Policy Coalition said the panel ordered judgment for the plaintiffs rather than sending the case back for another round in the trial court. That means the challengers won the relief they sought at the appellate stage instead of merely receiving another chance to argue their case.

The challenged provisions were sections 922(a)(3), 922(a)(5) and 922(b)(3) of Title 18 of the United States Code, along with a related ATF regulation. They regulated what buyers, sellers and licensed dealers could do when a handgun transaction crossed state lines.

Together, those rules barred direct interstate handgun sales even when the buyer and dealer could otherwise complete a lawful transaction. The court concluded that the blanket structure burdened conduct protected by the Second Amendment.

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Judges Jerry Smith and Kurt Engelhardt formed the panel’s majority. Judge Catharina Haynes dissented.

The ruling is especially significant because the court rejected the idea that the government may attach extra costs to a basic constitutional right merely because a workaround remains available.

FPC drew attention to that passage from the opinion, which said earlier decisions suggesting an acceptable cost could be imposed on the exercise of Second Amendment rights had been displaced by Bruen and later cases.

The decision does not erase background checks or state gun laws. A sale still has to comply with every lawful rule that survives constitutional review.

But the government cannot defend a flat federal purchase ban by pointing to a slower, more expensive route and insisting that citizens should be grateful they have any path at all.

That principle reaches beyond one section of the Gun Control Act. Rights are not favors handed out by federal agencies, and bureaucratic convenience is not a substitute for constitutional history.

Attorney General Todd Blanche and the ATF were named as defendants in their official capacities. The ruling addresses the federal statute and regulation, not any personal conduct by Blanche.

Unless the government seeks rehearing or Supreme Court review, the Fifth Circuit’s judgment gives the plaintiffs the relief the district court denied and removes the ban within the court’s jurisdiction.

For Americans who have watched federal gun restrictions survive for decades simply because they were old, Friday’s opinion sends a clear message: longevity does not make an unconstitutional law legitimate.

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Photo: Attorney General Todd Blanche, by Ryan M. Biller/U.S. Department of Justice, public domain. Color corrected and reframed from the official portrait.

 

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