GOA Wins Landmark Legal Case

News story from GOA 06/23/26

Gun Owners of America defeated the ATF’s tyrannical “Engaged in the Business” rule, where a federal judge vacated the rule in its entirety.

This case was a challenge to the Biden-era “Engaged in the Business” rule, which essentially criminalized private sales of firearms, requiring sellers to obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and run a background check before doing so.

In reality, the true plan behind this rule was to create a universal background check system without any act of congress. Instead, ATF would simply arrest those who did not comply.

Combine this with the fact that prior, the Biden Administration mandated that all background check forms be held by ATF indefinitely, further growing ATF’s illegal registry of guns and gun owners.

When the rule was released, GOA along with the Attorney Generals of four states, sued the ATF over the enforcement of this blatantly unconstitutional rule.

Recently, a federal judge agreed with us, vacating the rule and declaring that the ATF may not apply the final rule to anyone — including individuals and organizations that are not parties in our case.

Although we are celebrating the win in this rule being vacated, ATF still maintains an illegal registry.

GOA asserts that they are working to dismantle the registry with the help of Congress, and claims they will not let up until ATF’s illegal registry is completely abolished.