National Coalition to Ban Handguns v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit · No. 82-1624 · 715 F.2d 632
👍Favorable to gun rights
Refused to read a stricter dealer-licensing requirement into the Gun Control Act, rejecting the gun-control plaintiffs' claim.
GunMapUSA assessment of the outcome's direction, not a statement that the court decided rightly or wrongly.
What the court held
A gun-control coalition, joined by New York City and several local officials, sued to force ATF to read the Gun Control Act of 1968 as limiting federal dealers' licenses to 'bona fide firearms businesses' with separate premises, regular hours, advertising, and local-law compliance. The D.C. Circuit found at least one plaintiff had standing but affirmed dismissal on the merits, holding that the Act's licensing criteria impose no such commercial-enterprise requirement and that Congress had deliberately relaxed the business-activity and business-premises standards of the predecessor statute.
Summarized from the court's opinion.
Key Dates
- 1983-08-23 — Decided
Sources
- CourtListener — retrieved 2026-08-08
Summary of public court records. Not legal advice.