Seems Scalia and Roberts are leaning toward the ATF overstepped its authority ...
Justice Antonin Scalia was the most ardent in pointing out that the government was out of bounds in its pursuit of Mr. Abramski.
“What about somebody who is qualified to own a firearm? Can I take a firearm that I own and say, ‘You know, it’s yours?’” Justice Scalia asked the plaintiff’s attorney, who confirmed that it was lawful.
He continued, “Don’t have to register it? I don’t have to go through a firearm dealer, right? It’s my gun, and I can give it to somebody else who’s qualified.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. seemed to side with the plaintiff’s position that the ATF had overstepped into trying to create criminal law. Referring to the Gun Control Act, the chief justice said, “This language is fought over tooth and nail by people on the gun-control side and the gun-ownership side.”
He called it “very problematic” for the government to cite going after law abiding people who resell firearms as a purpose of the law since “there are no words in the statute that have anything to do with straw purchasers.”