Fifth Circuit urged to shoot down restriction on interstate handgun purchases

The Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun dealer, and two individuals are asking the Fifth Circuit to strike down a 1968 federal law requiring handgun buyers to route out-of-state purchases through a dealer in their home state, arguing it violates the Second Amendment under the Supreme Court's Bruen test. Their attorney told the panel the government could not cite a single founding-era or 19th-century law barring nonresidents from buying firearms out of state.

A Justice Department attorney defended the law as preventing people from evading their home state's firearm regulations by crossing state lines, tracing its roots to a 1938 law without residency restrictions that Congress later tightened. She argued the restriction is a commercial regulation causing only a 'de minimis' burden — modest delay and possibly higher cost — not a ban on possession.

A lower court, ruling for the government, sidestepped the historical analysis entirely, finding the law doesn't implicate the Second Amendment's 'plain text' because it regulates commercial sale rather than possession. The three-judge panel, which heard arguments from judges appointed by Reagan, Trump and Bush, took the case under submission.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.