The reappearance of Neil Gorsuch’s sporadic textualism

In a gun control case, no less:

 The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Biden administration regulation on the nearly impossible-to-trace weapons called ghost guns, clearing the way for continued serial numbers, background checks and age verification requirements for buying the kits online.

The 7-2 opinion found that existing gun laws allow regulation of the kits increasingly linked to crime. It comes after President Donald Trump ordered a review that could undermine or reverse the regulations championed by his predecessor.

Sales of the homemade firearms grew exponentially as kits allowing for easy at-home building came into the market, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “Some home hobbyists enjoy assembling them. But criminals also find them attractive,” he said.

The number of ghost guns found at crime scenes around the country has also soared, according to federal data. Fewer than 1,700 were recovered by law enforcement in 2017, but that number grew to 27,000 in 2023, according to Justice Department data.

Gorsuch’s opinion for the Court is clear and comprehensive. Sotomayor, in a concurrence responding a Kavanaugh concurrence attempting to narrow the scope of the Court’s holding, summarizes it nicely:

For more than half a century, firearms dealers, manufacturers, and importers have complied with the Gun Control Act’s requirements. They have marked their products with serial numbers, kept records of firearm sales, and conducted background checks for prospective buyers. These requirements are not new to the industry, and covered entities know they must maintain familiarity with the statute and accompanying regulations to run their businesses. In fact, the Act requires such entities to obtain federal licenses before selling, manufacturing, or importing any firearms in the first place.

What is new is that some manufacturers have sought to circumvent the Act’s requirements by selling easy-to assemble firearm kits and frames, which they claim fall outside the statute’s scope. ATF’s rule simply confirms what was already clear: The Gun Control Act does not tolerate such evasion.

Its plain text covers firearm kits and unfinished frames or receivers designed for ready conversion, as the Court explains. So, for entities who seek to comply with the Act in good faith, ATF’s rule should come as no surprise. Nor should it create any difficulty discerning how to abide by the law.

Inter alia, the text of the Gun Control Act specifically mentions starter pistols. which require conversion to be used as weapons. It is plain as day that the statute applies to easy-to-assemble ghost gun kits.

You’ll never guess which two justices dissented (tl; dr: “the U.S. Code, like the U.S. Constitution, always agrees with the most recent platform of the Texas Republican Party”), if your only information about the Court comes from Wall Street Journal op-eds. On the question of whether Trump is primarily a symptom or cause, the fact that neither of the two most partisan justices on the Court were Trump nominees seems relevant.