BELLEVUE, WA – A federal court in Texas has granted a request by the Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed to intervene in a case known as VanDerStok v. Garland, which challenges the authority of the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate items that are not firearms, as if they were firearms.
The lawsuit alleges that the agencies did not follow the Administrative Procedures Act.
“We are grateful to the court for granting this intervention,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We didn’t take this effort lightly, and our interest is in making sure our members’ rights are represented as this case moves forward.”
“We are pleased that the Court has granted SAF the ability to intervene,” said Adam Kraut, SAF’s Executive Director. “With our motion to intervene having been granted, SAF will be able to defend the rights of its members from ATF’s overreach with its frames and receiver rule. We look forward to vindicating the rights of our members, supporters, and the general public.”
As noted by the court in granting the motion to intervene, “SAF has…satisfied the standing requirement by establishing associational standing. Clearly at least one of SAF’s members—namely, Defense Distributed—has standing to sue in its own right. Additionally, the interests SAF seeks to protect, including its members’ rights under the Second Amendment that movant will raise if permitted to intervene, are germane to the association’s purpose of “promot[ing] the right to keep and bear arms . . . by supporting . . . legal efforts about the Constitution’s right to privately own and possess firearms.” Finally, because SAF seeks declaratory and injunctive relief regarding the rights of its members, and not individual damages, individual member participation in the lawsuit is not required.”