LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and 17 other state attorneys general are leading the fight to defend Arkansans’ rights to keep and bear arms. The coalition filed a brief refuting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s (ATF) erroneous rulemaking that criminalized bump stock accessories in the Gun Owners of America v. Merrick Garland case. The ATF’s Final Rule on Bump-Stock-Type Devices contravened federal law – as well as longstanding ATF policy – when it informed owners of bump stocks that they must surrender or destroy their bump stocks to avoid criminal liability. A United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit panel rightly ruled against the ATF in March. Rutledge and the coalition of attorneys general is now urging the full court to do the same.

“I’ll never stop fighting to defend our fundamental right to keep and bear arms,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “Under my watch, I will not allow ATF to undermine our Second Amendment rights.”

Through its rulemaking, the ATF overreached and attempted to regulate bump stock accessories by asserting they transform the firearms they are attached to into “machineguns” as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). That rule contravened federal law and violated the Second Amendment.

In addition to Rutledge, the brief was led by Montana’s Attorney General and signed onto by attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.