Everytown v. ATF
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit · No. 19-3438
👍Favorable to gun rights
FOIA case, not a Second Amendment ruling; kept ATF trace data out of public disclosure and went against the gun-control organization seeking it
GunMapUSA assessment of the outcome's direction, not a statement that the court decided rightly or wrongly.
What the court held
Everytown for Gun Safety sought data from ATF's Firearms Trace System under FOIA, and the district court ordered disclosure on the theory that the 2012 Tiahrt Rider could not serve as a FOIA Exemption 3 statute because it did not specifically cite that exemption as required by the OPEN FOIA Act of 2009. The Second Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment for ATF, holding that an earlier statute cannot prevent a later one from taking effect and that the 2012 rider, which carried forward language courts had long read to bar disclosure, exempts trace data from FOIA.
Summarized from the court's opinion.
What this case is about
FOIA disclosure of data from ATF's Firearms Trace System
GunMapUSA summary of the issue, not a quotation from the court.
Key Dates
- 2020-12-23 — Decided
Sources
- CourtListener — retrieved 2026-08-08
Summary of public court records. Not legal advice.