Ghost Guns at SCOTUS: The ATF Once Again Seeks an Expansive View of Its Own Authority

It’s like déjà vu all over again. 

Another Supreme Court term has started and another government agency finds itself before the justices trying to justify taking an expansive view of its own authority. 

In Garland v. VanDerStok, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seeks to defend a rule it promulgated two years ago expanding its ability to regulate so-called ghost guns and their parts by expansively interpreting certain terms in—and adding others to—the Gun Control Act of 1968.