Texas Silencer Case Dismissed, Judge Rules Plaintiffs Have No Standing

AmmoLand ^ | July 26, 2023 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

On July 18, Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, ruled the plaintiffs in the case of Ken Paxton v. Gary M. Restaino (Previously Dettleback, the case name changes with the name of the head of the ATF) have no standing to pursue the lawsuit, because they have not suffered concrete harm. The case is dismissed without prejudice, which means it can be refiled with new evidence. The case is the result of the passage of Texas bill HB 957. The bill required the Attorney General of Texas to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal law governing the possession and regulation of silencers. On September 1, 2021, HB 957 became law.

The lawsuit was filed by Ken Paxton, Attorney General of the State of Texas, on February 24, 2022, as required by the passage of Texas Bill HB 957. The arguments in the lawsuit were bolstered by the Bruen decision published on June 22, 2022. Having a federal law declared unconstitutional is a difficult thing to do. It was easier before ideological Progressives took over the government, starting with President Theodore Roosevelt. The government was cut back a good bit with President Calvin Coolidge, ramped up with President Woodrow Wilson, and pushed into overdrive with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration and World War II. Since the Progressive revolution in the Supreme Court in the 1930s, the Court has been far less willing to overturn federal laws. The court has assumed a new doctrine: laws are presumed to be constitutional if passed by the legislature.

Entities challenging laws must have “standing”. Standing means they have an actual “concrete injury to a legally protected interest.” But standing has become a way for judges to pick and choose

[Spacetrucker]

That isn’t a warning, it’s a mission statement.

[The Mayor]

Thanks!

[threefinger]

"1. They're not 'silencers': They're SUPPRESSORS."

Hiram Maxim -- who invented them -- disagreed.

So did the patent bureau:

H. P. MAXIM SILENCER FOR GUNS Filed Feb. 21, 1921 Patented Feb. 5, 1924.
HIE/AM PERCY MAXIM, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. SILENCER FOR GUNS.
Application filed February 21, 1921. Serial No. 446,822.
T 0 all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, HIRAM PERCY MAXIM, a citizen of the United States and a. resident of Hartford, county of Hartford, State of" Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Silencer for Guns, of which the following is a specification. The present invention relates to a device for silencing the noise of a gun report, and ....

And so does today's BATFE:

From the ATF Form 4 (5320. 4), Application for Tax Paid Transfer and Registration of Firearm, Revised November 2022

So Hiram says your wrong, the Patent Office says your wrong, and the BATFE says you're wrong.

The shorter answer is, it doesn't matter. call it a suppressor, a silencer, a muffler, a moderator or a 'can,' it's all the same thing. Even IF you convince everybody on earth NOT to call them silencers (like that's going to happen :roll eyes:), it's NOT going to get them off the list of NFA devices.

[threefinger]

"'Standing' has become a way for judges to pick and choose which cases will go forward, or, at least, which cases they wish to hear."

Rulings on standing are nothing new, what's new is ruling that a state's Attorney General has no standing in safeguarding the rights of his constituents from federal encroachment when, point of fact, that is precisely his charter. He is, to coin a phrase, that state's Defender of the Faith.

[NorthMountain]

“Standing” is how corrupt judges make sure that election fraud (before or after) NEVER gets a hearing on the merits.

[NorthMountain]

Like it or not, the term “silencer” is used in Federal law; it’s also the term Hiram Maxim used for his patented invention.

[Dead Corpse]

The original “charter” for the ATF was a taxing agency. They lost that shred of Constitutionality when Bush moved them over under the DoJ.

We let them ignore smaller parts of the Constitution. Now, they just don’t give a sh*t...