Recently, the Fifth Circuit held that the federal ban on buying handguns directly from out-of-state dealers violates the Second Amendment. In the court’s words, the ban “sullies the plain text of the Second Amendment and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation.”
The case, Elite Precision Customs v. ATF, was brought by a Texas firearms dealer and law-abiding customers in Arizona and New Mexico who wanted to buy from it. Federal law allows in-person interstate rifle and shotgun sales but bans direct interstate handgun sale, forcing buyers to route purchases through a second dealer who may refuse and typically charges a fee. The district court dismissed the challenge.
The Fifth Circuit reversed and entered judgment for the plaintiffs. The court reaffirmed that the right to keep arms includes the right to buy them, recognized the law as a purchase ban, and rejected the idea that Americans should pay a fee to exercise a constitutional right. The government’s historical examples, from wartime export limits to gunpowder inspection laws, could not justify a peacetime ban on buyers from outside a state. The court also expressly rejected the Second Circuit’s contrary decision.
Read Opinion Here: Elite Precision Customs v. ATF