Within the authorities’s emergency utility, Ms. Prelogar requested the justices to think about an analogy.
“Every speaker of English would recognize that a tax on sales of ‘bookshelves’ applies to Ikea when it sells boxes of parts and the tools and instructions for assembling them into bookshelves,” she wrote.
A Supreme Courtroom temporary from one set of challengers stated the comparability was flawed.
“A better analogy would be to a ‘taco kit’ sold as a bundle by a grocery store that includes taco shells, seasoning packets, salsa and other toppings, along with a slab of raw beef,” the temporary stated. “No one would call the taco kit a taco. In addition to ‘assembly,’ turning it into one would require cutting or grinding and cooking the meat — and until that was done, it would be nonsensical to treat it as food and the equivalent of a taco.”
The 2 sides additionally differed on whether or not there was a spike in do-it-yourself firearms.
Ms. Prelogar wrote that there had been “an explosion of crimes involving ghost guns,” pointing to a sworn assertion from an A.T.F. official. Greater than 19,000 firearms with out serial numbers have been recovered by the authorities in 2021, the official stated, in contrast with about 1,600 in 2017. He added that within the 11 months ending in July, “a total of approximately 23,452 suspected privately made firearms were recovered at crime scenes and submitted for tracing.”
Such weapons are notably engaging to criminals and minors, Ms. Prelogar wrote, including that they “can be made from kits and parts that are available online to anyone with a credit card and that allow anyone with basic tools and rudimentary skills (or access to internet video tutorials) to assemble a fully functional firearm in as little as 20 minutes.”
The challengers’ temporary questioned the Biden administration’s information.
“The government’s alleged ‘epidemic’ of privately made firearms traced by the police appears to be largely an artifact of police departments changing their tracing practices in response to A.T.F. pressure,” the temporary stated, including that “nothing in the government’s submission demonstrates that firearms made by individuals for their own personal use are fueling an increase in crime.”
