NEWS: The Biden administration went back to the Supreme Court on Thursday regarding its “ghost gun” rule, the result of a Fifth Circuit order from earlier this week that the Justice Department calls “an affront” to basic legal principles.

After a 5-4 high court ruling in August stayed a district court ruling vacating the rule pending any appeal of the case — allowing the government to implement the rule during appeals — U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued an injunction against enforcement of the rule as to two of the gun manufacturers and their customers.

In a ruling from a three-Trump-appointee panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday, the appeals court kept the injunction in place as to the manufacturers. The unsigned order was issued by Judges Don Willett, Kurt Engelhardt, and Andrew Oldham.

On Thursday, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the Supreme Court to vacate the injunction in an application filed to Justice Sam Alito, acting as circuit justice.

“The district court and the Fifth Circuit have effectively countermanded this Court’s authoritative determination about the status quo that should prevail during appellate proceedings in this case,” Prelogar wrote. “In so doing, the lower courts openly relied on arguments that this Court had necessarily rejected to grant relief that this Court had withheld. The Court should not tolerate that affront to basic principles of vertical stare decisis.“