Press Release
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Rutledge joined a 22-state coalition supporting a challenge to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule that would immediately transform hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners into criminals. The brief asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, Gun Owners of America v. Merrick Garland, and reverse a lower court opinion upholding a ban on bump-stock accessories.
“As your Attorney General, I will continue to be the last line of defense between you and an overreaching federal government,” said Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. “The Biden Administration is on notice that I will continue to zealously defend our Second Amendment rights.”
The ATF’s Final Rule on Bump-Stock-Type Devices violated federal law – as well as longstanding ATF policy – by requiring bump stock owners to surrender or destroy them to avoid criminal liability. Bump stocks replace the standard stock of these firearms and enable the shooter to decrease the amount of time between rounds fired. They are commonly used accessories, and the ATF’s bump-stock rule is an attempt to circumvent the legislative branch and unilaterally re-write federal law. The ATF itself recognized that this type of accessory has been around since the introduction of semi-automatic firearms along with similar devices and modifications that can be used to create the same effect that the ATF is attempting to criminalize.
Attorney General Rutledge joined attorneys general of: Montana, West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming also signed on in support.
About Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Leslie Carol Rutledge is the 56th Attorney General of Arkansas. Elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn in on January 13, 2015, she is the first woman and first Republican in Arkansas history to be elected as Attorney General. She was resoundingly re-elected on November 6, 2018. Since taking office, she has significantly increased the number of arrests and convictions against online predators who exploit children and con artists who steal taxpayer money through Social Security Disability and Medicaid fraud. Further, she has held Rutledge Roundtable meetings and Mobile Office hours in every county of the State each year, and launched a Military and Veterans Initiative. She has led efforts to roll back government regulations that hurt job creators, fight the opioid epidemic, teach internet safety, combat domestic violence and make the office the top law firm for Arkansans. Rutledge serves on committees for Consumer Protection, Criminal Law and Veterans Affairs for the National Association of Attorneys General. She also served as the former Chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
A native of Batesville, she is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Rutledge clerked for the Arkansas Court of Appeals, was Deputy Counsel for former Governor Mike Huckabee, served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Lonoke County and was an Attorney at the Department of Human Services before serving as Counsel at the Republican National Committee. Rutledge and her husband, Boyce, have one daughter. The family has a home in Pulaski County and a farm in Crittenden County.