The ATF Could Lose Everything After the Supreme Court Took Aim at Their Power

By: Anthony Morelli

The ATF’s reign of terror could be nearing an end after this historic ruling.

The Supreme Court declared that they must stop abusing power immediately.

Now panic is setting in as the ATF realizes the implications of this decision.

For many years now, the executive branch of the federal government has been consolidating power at the expense of Congress.

This means that agencies like the ATF have been making laws essentially on their own, without any input from the legislative branch, which is supposed to be the most powerful branch.

Many of the people who lead these agencies surely expected this status quo to continue, as no one had shown any inclination or courage to put a stop to it.

But that all changed with the overturning Chevron case at the Supreme Court recently.

This case delivered a major hit to all executive branch agencies that have been claiming autonomous power to make laws in recent years.

And it means these executive branch agencies are going to lose a significant amount of power in the wake of it, including the ATF.

According to The Trace, “On June 28, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down a four-decade-old legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which allowed federal agencies to broadly interpret federal law.

“The ruling could have ramifications for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency in charge of regulating firearms, legal experts tell The Trace.”

Here is what Eric Rube, a law professor, had to say in the article: “The opinion will affect gun regulations like it’ll affect all agency regulations, and perhaps more. The courts are especially divided on gun law questions right now, and there are some that will be inclined to construe federal laws that delegate authority to the ATF narrowly.”

This is catastrophic news for gun grabbers across America, who were content to lean on the ATF to harass gun owners and implement anti-gun laws that can’t get through Congress or various state legislatures.

Now, the ATF is going to be toothless in a lot of these fights, since their power has taken a hit.

The article continues, “Chevron held that the courts should defer to federal agencies to interpret ambiguous federal laws. Now it will be up to the courts, as opposed to experts and scientists who work for the government, to decide whether federal laws are in line with Congress’s intent.”

The Biden administration has, at various times, ignored the Supreme Court and continued along with their unconstitutional decisions after a ruling that they didn’t like.

It remains to be seen if they do the same here. If they do, it would provoke a constitutional crisis, as the executive branch is required to defer to the Supreme Court.

But the people who are running the Biden administration don’t seem to have much care for the Constitution, so that surely won’t bother them.

Either way, they have run into a significant problem with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Chevron, and they are going to have some hard decisions to make.