Key Points

  • Tenth Circuit affirmed standing on possession claims, denied the district court's ripeness ruling to revive purchase/acquisition claims, and rejected standing on manufacturing claims tied to 3D printing.
  • Panel held Colorado's possession ban is not a mere condition on the commercial sale of firearms under Heller because it applies regardless of how the item was acquired, and remanded the denial of a preliminary injunction.
  • Case remanded for a Bruen historical-tradition analysis on the possession ban and further proceedings on the revived purchase-ban claims.
  • Judge Kelly partially dissented, arguing plaintiffs forfeited any private-party-acquisition theory and that the merits question should go back to the district court rather than be decided on appeal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in a decision issued April 23, 2026, resolved a challenge to Colorado's ban on unserialized firearms, frames, receivers, and parts kits by affirming part of the district court's standing ruling, denying the state's ripeness defense on another set of claims, and remanding for further proceedings in National Association for Gun Rights v. Polis, No. 24-1209.

The Colorado law at issue, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-12-111.5, bars the possession, purchase, sale, transfer, and manufacture of unserialized firearms, frames, and receivers, with violations charged as a misdemeanor or, on repeat offense, a felony. Individual plaintiffs who had purchased Polymer80 parts kits, along with the National Association for Gun Rights and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, sued Governor Jared Polis, arguing the statute infringes their Second Amendment rights. The district court allowed only a narrow slice of the case to proceed and then denied a preliminary injunction.

Writing for the panel, Judge Carson organized the standing analysis into three buckets: claims over continued possession of unserialized parts kits, claims over future purchases of such kits, and claims over private manufacture of frames and receivers. That framework, and the court's application of it, offers other circuits a roadmap for sorting standing in ghost-gun litigation as similar state laws multiply.

On possession, the panel agreed with the district court that plaintiff Richardson had standing because he continued to hold unserialized parts kits he could not lawfully possess, satisfying the requirement of an intention to engage in a course of conduct that is arguably affected with a constitutional interest, proscribed by a statute, and subject to a credible threat of prosecution.

On the acquisition-prohibition claims, the panel denied the state's position that the district court had correctly treated them as unripe based on an overlapping 2022 ATF rule requiring serialization of parts kits sold commercially. The panel found that ruling conflated ripeness with redressability, and concluded that because the federal rule does not reach private-party transfers the way Colorado's law does, a favorable judgment could still redress a discrete injury—leaving those claims live on remand.

On the manufacturing-prohibition claims, the panel sided with the state. Applying Colorado interpretive canons, the court read the statute's separate definitions of an unfinished frame or receiver—described as an article that may readily be completed, assembled, or converted into a finished frame—and its 3D-printing-focused manufacturing ban to mean that completing, assembling, or converting a parts kit into a finished frame is not manufacturing under the law. Because the plaintiffs' desired conduct was not proscribed by the statute, they lacked an injury in fact for that claim, and the associations' standing failed along with it.

As we recently explained, a regulation is not a condition or qualification on the commercial sale of firearms if the regulation "ha[s] nothing to do with the [conduct's] commercial nature."

That line, drawn from the court's own recent precedent, informed the panel's treatment of the merits. The district court had denied preliminary relief by characterizing the possession ban as a presumptively constitutional condition on the commercial sale of a firearm under Heller. The Tenth Circuit denied that reasoning, noting the statute bars possession of unserialized frames and firearms "no matter how a person previously acquired the frame or firearm"—including as a gift—so it has nothing to do with the commercial nature of any transaction. The panel held the district court abused its discretion in denying the injunction on that ground and remanded for the district court to evaluate the possession ban under the history-and-tradition test from Bruen and the remaining preliminary-injunction factors, along with the newly revived acquisition claims.

Judge Kelly concurred in part and dissented in part. He agreed that Richardson had standing on the possession claims and that plaintiffs lacked standing on the manufacturing claims, but argued the majority went too far in reviving the acquisition-prohibition claims. In his view, plaintiffs never developed a factual record showing they intended to acquire unserialized parts from private individuals rather than commercial vendors, and any such theory was forfeited under Richison v. Ernest Group. He also would have remanded the merits question on possession for the district court to reconsider in the first instance in light of the panel's recent decisions, rather than resolving it on appeal.

For litigants elsewhere confronting ghost-gun statutes, the decision underscores two practical lessons: standing arguments must be tethered to specific, previously disclosed conduct rather than generalized "law-abiding" declarations, and states will have a harder time defending broad possession bans as mere sale conditions once plaintiffs show the restriction applies regardless of how the item was obtained. The case now returns to the District of Colorado for further proceedings on the acquisition-prohibition claims and the possession ban's constitutionality under Bruen's historical framework.