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 (ATF) 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.
For those unfamiliar, ghost guns are guns, or gun parts, that can be assembled from online kits and typically do not have serial numbers because the manufacturers argue that these items are not covered by the Gun Control Act’s definition of a “firearm.”
That act defines a “firearm” as “(A) Any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is…
