A federal appeals court has ruled that the decades-old ban on direct interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment, the latest in a string of court victories for gun rights that is dismantling pillars of federal firearms regulation.
A two-judge majority on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act barring gun stores from selling handguns directly to out-of-state residents cannot survive constitutional scrutiny. The ruling, dated September 18, held that the ban clashes with both the plain text of the Second Amendment and the historical tradition of firearms regulation in America. Judge Jerry E. Smith, a Reagan appointee, wrote the majority opinion. Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, a George W. Bush appointee, joined him.
The practical effect is straightforward. Under the struck-down provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 922, a Louisiana resident who walked into a Texas gun store and passed a federal background check still could not buy a handgun on the spot. The store had to ship it to a licensed dealer back in the buyer's home state, adding cost, delay, and paperwork to a transaction the buyer was already legally entitled to complete. The Fifth Circuit said that extra burden has no constitutional basis.
Judge Smith did not hold back in the majority opinion. As the Daily Caller reported, Smith wrote:
"The Ban sullies the plain text of the Second Amendment and is inconsistent with the nation's tradition of firearms regulation, dating back to the founding era, under that Amendment."
That language tracks the analytical framework the Supreme Court established in its landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires firearms restrictions to be justified by historical analogues from the nation's founding era. Under that standard, the government must show not just a rational policy reason for a gun law but a historical tradition of similar regulation. The Fifth Circuit majority concluded the interstate handgun sales ban fails that test.
Judge Catharina Haynes, also a George W. Bush appointee, dissented. She sided with the lower court that had upheld the ban.
"I respect the majority opinion, but I respectfully dissent. I agree with the district court's decision that the several provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 922 discussed in this case are not unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. That is all that is in play in this case, thus, I would affirm."
Haynes offered no extended rebuttal in the excerpts available from the opinion. Her dissent rested on agreement with the district court's reasoning, a position the majority plainly rejected.
The interstate handgun sales prohibition has been federal law for nearly six decades. Congress enacted the Gun Control Act of 1968 in the aftermath of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr. The law imposed a broad set of restrictions on firearms commerce, including the ban on selling handguns directly to nonresidents.
Whatever the political climate that produced the law, the Fifth Circuit's majority held that emotional urgency in 1968 does not override the constitutional text ratified in 1791. That distinction, between policy motivation and constitutional authority, sits at the heart of the post-Bruen legal landscape. Courts are increasingly asking whether a given firearms restriction has any historical parallel, and when the answer is no, the restriction falls.
The federal judiciary has been active on other fronts as well. The Fifth Circuit recently addressed constitutional rights in immigration proceedings, underscoring the court's willingness to draw firm lines around what the Constitution does and does not guarantee.
The interstate handgun ruling did not arrive in isolation. Since late May, pro-Second Amendment groups have racked up a series of victories across the federal court system that, taken together, represent the most significant rollback of gun regulations in a generation.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law that required private property owners who wanted to allow concealed carry on their premises to post signs clearly stating that guns were permitted. The ruling in Wolford v. Lopez found the signage requirement unconstitutional.
That same month, Justice Neil Gorsuch authored a unanimous 9-0 decision in Hemani v. United States, holding that a regular marijuana user could not be prosecuted under the federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), that bars drug users from possessing firearms. A unanimous Supreme Court is rare on any subject. On guns, it was a signal that even the court's liberal wing saw the government's position as untenable.
On July 17, the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey's ban on so-called "assault weapons." The appellate court went further than the lower court had, expanding the ruling beyond AR-15-style rifles to cover many modern semiautomatic rifles. It also declared standard-capacity magazines protected under the Second Amendment, a direct challenge to magazine-capacity laws in blue states across the country.
Courts have been equally busy sorting out constitutional boundaries in other areas of law. Multiple appeals courts have weighed in on immigration detention policy, a reminder that the federal judiciary is reshaping legal doctrine on several fronts simultaneously.
Two rulings from the Northern District of Texas targeted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives directly. In August, Chief Judge Reed O'Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled in favor of Defense Distributed, finding that the ATF's "frame or receiver rule" was unconstitutional on both Fifth Amendment and Second Amendment grounds. That rule had attempted to extend federal firearms regulations to unfinished gun parts and kits.
On August 5, Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, granted summary judgment for the Silencer Shop Foundation. Hendrix found that registration and administrative requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and other items whose federal tax had been reduced to zero dollars were unconstitutional. If the government charges no tax, the court reasoned, the regulatory apparatus built around collecting that tax loses its justification.
As of the following Monday, the Justice Department had not filed an appeal of the Silencer Shop Foundation ruling. Whether DOJ lets the decision stand or fights it will say a great deal about the administration's appetite for defending gun regulations that courts are increasingly willing to discard.
The ATF has faced mixed results at the Supreme Court level. The high court upheld a Biden-era ATF regulation requiring ghost gun kits to carry serial numbers and buyers to pass background checks, in a 7-2 decision that reversed lower courts, including the Fifth Circuit, which had sided with gun rights groups. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, writing, "The Government now asks us to revise statutory text so that it can regulate weapon-parts kits. This time, the Court obliges. I would not." That ghost gun ruling stands as a reminder that the judiciary's pro-Second Amendment trend is not absolute, but the momentum is unmistakable.
Federal courts have also been active in striking down state-level policies on other issues. A federal judge recently struck down Illinois tuition benefits for illegal immigrants, reflecting a broader judicial willingness to check government overreach regardless of the policy domain.
The Fifth Circuit ruling leaves several questions unanswered. The full case name and the identities of the parties who brought the challenge have not been widely reported. Whether the government will seek rehearing before the full Fifth Circuit or petition the Supreme Court remains to be seen. No party has publicly announced an appeal.
The practical impact could be substantial. If the ruling stands, licensed gun dealers in states within the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, would be free to sell handguns directly to qualified out-of-state buyers who pass a background check. Whether other circuits follow suit or create a split that forces the Supreme Court's hand is the next chapter in this fight.
The broader pattern, though, is hard to miss. Courts at every level of the federal system have spent the summer dismantling gun regulations that lawmakers assumed were settled law. The 1968 Gun Control Act, the ATF's administrative rules, state-level bans on common firearms and accessories, all have been challenged, and in case after case, the government has lost. Legal maneuvering by state officials has complicated some government positions in court, but on Second Amendment questions, the trajectory favors individual rights.
For decades, gun-control advocates treated the 1968 Act as untouchable bedrock. The Fifth Circuit just reminded them that no statute sits above the Constitution, and courts are finally willing to say so.