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The battle for our Second Amendment rights continued in the House, and fortunately, it resulted in a win Tuesday. Specifically in regards to the ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Rule that recently took effect, making criminals of law-abiding citizens—overnight. As a result, the Republican-run House passed H.J. Res. 44, blocking the ATF’s unconstitutional rule, with 2 Democrats supporting.
House Passes Resolution to Block ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Rule
According to Breitbart News, “On April 20, 2023, Breitbart News reported that H.J. Res. 44 passed out of committee, at which time Rep. Clyde told Breitbart News he was convinced the resolution would reach the House floor for a vote.”
As expected, the resolution went to the House on Tuesday, June 13th, 2023, where it passed by a 219 to 210 vote. Despite the odd fact that we need a law to repeal a rule, the resolution now goes to the Senate. Since the resolution passed in the House, this allows a vote in the Senate without a filibuster.
After the bill, sponsored by Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Richard Hudson (R-NC), passed, the two celebrated on Twitter.
Rep. Andrew Clyde tweeted:
And Rep. Richard Hudson tweeted:
CCRKBA Expresses Its Congratulations
Following its passage, the CCRKBA (Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) congratulated the effort.
“We’re encouraged that House Republicans have sided with the nation’s firearm owners in opposing this new arm brace rule,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.
“The rule was a complete reversal of earlier ATF policy which shows how insidious the Biden administration’s efforts to erode the Second Amendment have become. Joe Biden campaigned on a gun prohibition platform, and now his administration is trying to turn millions of law-abiding citizens, including disabled veterans, into criminals just to advance his agenda,” he continued.
However, Gottlieb urges citizens to contact their U.S. Senators to voice their opinion about the rule.
“We are urging our members and supporters to contact their U.S. Senators in order to speedily move this House resolution through the upper chamber. It is important that gun owners stand together against the Biden administration’s blatant effort to criminalize the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right.”
Gottlieb goes on to state that Senate Democrats need to hear from the citizens they represent. It is time that they stand with their constituents and the Constitution against the Biden Administration’s weaponizing of federal agencies.
In the CCRKBA press release, Gottlieb gives one final message of strength and resolve:
“Gun owners are not the enemy,” he noted. “We’re just honest citizens who are tired of being used as scapegoats and treated like criminals, which is what the pistol brace rule change is really all about. Blocking the pistol brace rule will signal the White House and the ATF to stop playing games with the Second Amendment.”
Keep checking back with TL on this developing story.
On March 23, 2023, Tactical Life reported:
As we reported in early February (below), Rep. Andrew Clyde was eyeing the Congressional Review Act to block the ATF pistol stabilizing brace rule. According to his website, Clyde and Rep. Richard Hudson introduced the resolution Monday.
CRA Resolution Introduced to Block ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Rule
On Monday of this week, Reps. Andrew Clyde and Richard Hudson introduced a CRA resolution against the ATF stabilizing brace rule. 180 House Republicans joined the effort, while Sens. John Kennedy and Roger Marshall introduced the companion resolution in the Senate.
According to Clyde, “Congress must swiftly move to block the ATF’s unconstitutional pistol brace rule, as this misguided measure turns millions of law-abiding gun owners, including many disabled veterans, into criminals for merely possessing legal firearms with stabilizing braces.”
He went on to state, “Unquestionably, this is nothing more than a reckless attempt to advance President Biden’s ultimate goal of an unarmed America.”
Gun Owners of America told Fox News Digital it fully supports both resolutions. Further, it states that it helped Clyde and Marshall draft the resolutions. Likewise, the organization dismissed any notion that the Biden administration was operating within its means to enforce the rule.
GOA went on to tell Fox News, “Biden’s ATF has no authority to mandate that the owners of up to 40,000,000 pistols destroy, turn in, rebuild, or register those guns with the federal government before their arbitrary May 31st compliance deadline.”
What Does This Mean?
Although the ink is still drying on the resolution, it looks like this could be the end of the rule. The Congressional Review Act, implemented in the 1990s, is a means to undo illegitimate rules by unelected officials.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “The CRA allows Congress to review “major” rules issued by federal agencies before the rules take effect. Congress may also disapprove new rules, resulting in the rules having no force or effect.”
Likewise, Fox News further clarifies, “The resolution would nullify the Biden administration rule if passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Biden, or if Congress were to override a likely Biden veto.”
This is still fresh, and we are monitoring it. Anything is possible in this crazy “new normal,” but this is looking very promising.
We will be sure to bring you the latest as it happens. Hopefully, the next update will include news of the rule’s ultimate demise.
Keep checking back with TL on this developing story.
On February 28, 2023, Tactical Life reported:
To say that the ATF kicked the hornet’s nest with its recent pistol stabilizing brace rule is putting it mildly. The reversal of nearly a decade of guidance on pistol classification threatens jobs and businesses. Not to mention the rights of law-abiding American citizens. And the industry will not just sit idly by and watch it happen. Now, Maxim Defense joins the fracas with its own suit against the agency.
Maxim Defense Partners with FPC Against ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Rule
Maxim Defense sells pistols equipped with pistol braces in the hundreds of thousands. So, the new rule threatens not only the livelihood of the company itself but also its employees. As a result, on February 21st, 2023, FPC and Maxim Defense filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Mock v. Garland.
According to Michael Windfeldt, Founder of Maxim Defense, the company’s history is linked to the pistol stabilizing brace. So, Maxim Defense adds a very important voice to the conversation.
“The recent ATF Pistol Brace Rule creates additional difficulty for an already burdened industry,” said Windfeldt. “This challenges us all. Everyone recognizes how important it is for lawful firearm owners to have a voice, and Maxim is committed to fighting for our rights.”
According to the lawsuit, the reclassification results from the—at the time—newly elected President Biden. His campaign ran on gun control, and when congress didn’t give him what he wanted, he used the ATF to “dramatically expand their interpretation of the congressionally defined term ‘rifle’ to accomplish the legislative agenda Congress declined to adopt.”
This is a completely unacceptable and unconstitutional end run around the Second Amendment and legislative process. If it is allowed to stand, it will not stop here. It is time to disband the ATF for good.
On February 9, 2023, Tactical Life reported:
SB Tactical formally announced a lawsuit today, in conjunction with the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition (FRAC), against the ATF. The lawsuit challenges the legality of the ATF’s recent Final Rule reversing a decade of legality for pistol stabilizing braces.
SB Tactical Sues ATF Over Pistol Stabilizing Brace Final Rule
“Under the guise of ‘public safety,’ the ATF has placed millions of law-abiding firearm owners in legal jeopardy,” said Jeff Creamer, president and CEO of SB Tactical. “It’s a gross overreach of the Bureau’s authority and, if allowed to stand, will result in the largest gun registration scheme in U.S. history.”
FRAC, the lead plaintiff, filed the litigation in North Dakota. A coalition of 25 states, lead by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, also joined the litigation.
“As we’ve seen with similar cases like Cargill v. Garland, wherein FRAC, SB Tactical, and B&T USA all appeared as amici curiae, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that such regulatory overreaches are not within the ATF’s authority,” said Travis White, president and CEO of FRAC. “We feel that there is a positive trend towards regulatory accountability in the Courts, and we are confident that the Courts will continue to hold the ATF accountable for their pattern of regulatory overreach and ever-shifting positions.”
Keep checking back with TL on this developing story.
On Feb. 1, 2023, Tactical Life reported:
UPDATED: The ATF is about to learn who makes the rules in this country. Spoiler alert: it isn’t them. Fortunately for law-abiding citizens, we still have representatives fighting for us. In this case, Representative Andrew Clyde has plans to shut down the new pistol stabilizing brace rule from the ATF. Utilizing the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Rep. Clyde plans to introduce a resolution to override the unconstitutional new ruling.
ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Rule Under Fire
Soon after the ATF overstepped its bounds, Representative Clyde took to Twitter to announce action against the new rule. Specifically, he plans to reintroduce the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today Act (SHORT Act). This would repeal elements of the National Firearms Act, which would, in turn, prohibit the ATF from registering and banning pistols with stabilizing braces.
Likewise, he plans to introduce a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to override the new ATF rule.
According to the Brookings Institute, the Congressional Review Act creates a streamlined procedure by which Congress can disapprove and nullify regulations promulgated by various federal government agencies.
Likewise, the Congressional Review Act requires all rules to be reported to Congress. Congress then has 60 legislative working days to introduce a special joint resolution of disapproval of the rule. The resolution can then be discharged from the committee and avoid the Senate’s filibuster.
Similarly, the U.S. Government Accountability Office states that the Congressional Review Act allows Congress to review “major” rules issued by federal agencies before they take effect. Congress can also disapprove of the new rules. As a result, the new rules have no force or effect.
In other words, the ATF can pound sand. It does not make the rules in this country; the elected legislative branch makes the rules.
ATF in the Crosshairs
The ATF really kicked the hornet’s nest with this one. It seems that its decision to institute this unconstitutional rule has garnered a lot of negative attention for the organization. Aside from the pistol stabilizing brace rule being targeted by the CRA, there is also new legislation proposed to abolish the agency.
Representative Matt Gaetz introduced legislation this week titled Abolish the ATF Act. And it is quite clear what it aims to do. Gaetz filed the legislation in response to the new ATF rule on stabilizing braces.
In a press release following the ATF announcement, Gaetz states, “House Republicans have the ATF in our crosshairs. The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on their repeated actions to convert law-abiding citizens into felons. They must be stopped. My bill today would abolish the ATF once and for all.”
As if that weren’t enough of a message, Gaetz told Fox News, “My bill would abolish the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to try defunding the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to target the individual bureaucrats at the top of the ATF who have exceeded their authority in rulemaking. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a meat cleaver to the statutes that the ATF believes broadly authorize their actions.”
Things aren’t looking so good for the ATF at the moment. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving organization.
On January 15, 2023, Tactical Life reported:
UPDATED: Well the ATF finally did it. The agency released its Final Rule on the Pistol Stabilizing Brace, putting all previously legal gun owners of AR- and AK-style pistols using the device in serious peril of becoming felons.
ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Final Rule Released
The convoluted and confusing 293-page document becomes yet another bit of ATF guidance that proves difficult to understand. It appears the rule attempts to prevent anyone from using a pistol stabilizing device to fire from the shoulder. The rule stipulates it will “not affect ‘stabilizing braces’ that are objectively designed as a ‘stabilizing brace’ for use by individuals with disabilities, and not for shouldering the weapon as a rifle.”
For everyone else, the Rule says “Any weapons with ‘stabilizing braces’ or similar attachments that constitute rifles under the NFA must be registered no later than 120 days after date of publication in the Federal Register; or the short barrel removed and a 16-inch or longer rifle barrel attached to the firearm; or permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the ‘stabilizing brace’ such that it cannot be reached…”
This one will most likely play out further in court, much like bump stocks. This is a developing story, so stay tuned for more updates.
ATF Goes After Pistol Stabilizing Braces
On Dec. 21, 2020, Tactical Life’s Will Dabbs reported:
PSB—Fallout. Nope, that’s not the title of the latest first-person shooter video game; it’s the ominous dark cloud you see building on the horizon. PSBs (Pistol Stabilizing Brace) are an entire world that seems about to change fundamentally thanks to the ATF.
Alex Boscoe’s PSB altered most everything about the American gun scene. Boscoe originally developed this delightful device to allow disabled shooters to run rifle-caliber pistols safely one-handed. However, there have been rumblings for literally years now that the ATF was trying to exert more control over PSB-equipped firearms. Now, with the pending arrival of a liberal Presidential administration, things have reached critical mass.
Fallout From the ATF Pistol Stabilizing Brace Guidance
A recent announcement of proposed rule making portends significant new restrictions on PSB-equipped weapons. These proposed rules also imply that there will be an amnesty of sorts. Presumably this would allow owners of PSB-equipped firearms to register their guns as short-barreled rifles (SBRs) easily and without payment of the $200 tax. If this is indeed the case, much will change about gun ownership in America. I’m no psychic, but here are a few of the changes I could see coming as a result.
1. Goodbye PSB-Specific Companies
If PSB-equipped guns are indeed reclassified as SBRs, then companies making PSBs will implode. SB Tactical is one of my favorite gun companies. It changed the paradigm of American gun ownership by successfully challenging the status quo. I love those guys. However, if PSB-equipped guns suddenly and administratively become SBRs, then SB Tactical’s market is irrevocably gone overnight.
There is a precedent. I’m old enough to remember when this happened to machine gun manufacturers in 1986. On May 19, they were engaged in a legally, albeit heavily, regulated business. The next day, everything they produced was untouchable by normal American citizens.
Don’t expect Uncle Sam to care about those who lose their livelihoods because of any new regulations. He won’t. These are gun guys, not violent social justice protestors. There won’t be any verklempt celebrities weeping on national TV over their sordid plight.
2. Flooding the SBR Market
If this is indeed an amnesty allowing us to register guns as SBRs tax-free, then we will have some hard decisions to make. I own several PSBs myself. It will be tempting to sign up all those AKs and AR receivers as SBRs. It would admittedly be great fun to replace my PSBs with real-live buttstocks. However, that would absolutely flood the market with SBRs.
If that’s the case, the resale potential for those guns drops to nothing. If everybody and their grandmother suddenly has amnesty registered SBRs, then nobody is going to be willing to pay $200 to transfer one. The decision to be made will be whether to register the gun or just remove the PSB and run it as a conventional old school big-boned pistol.
3. Wait Time Increase
Current estimations have around four million PSBs in circulation. As of 2017, there were 5,203,489 firearms listed in the National Firearms Registry and Transfer Record (NFRTR). A sweeping SBR amnesty could easily bump the number of guns in the registry by 50 percent. All those new American gun owners added to a spooky government database should put a smile on Kamala Harris’ face.
The current wait time for processing a Form 4 (the ATF form used to transfer an NFA item to an individual) is seven months, as per the ATF website. One Form 4 I did a while back took a full year. Dumping another couple million guns into the NFRTR won’t do much to speed that up.
The ATF folks in Martinsburg really are working their butts off to process these things. They moved 2.6 million forms in 2016; that’s 9,731 forms each and every work day. Now we propose to add another several million guns to the registry. I don’t envy them.
Conspiracy Theories
This has been done before. In 1994 the ATF reclassified the USAS-12, Striker-12, and Streetsweeper shotguns as Destructive Devices under the NFA. I guess just because they looked scary. This seems awfully silly in light of the subsequent Saiga shotgun. Regardless, there was a tax-free amnesty covering these three models that ran from 1994 until 2001. During that time, Americans registered some 8,200 guns. A potential PSB amnesty, however, would be on an altogether different scale.
The Internet is awash with conspiracy theories. The most prevalent seems to be that the ATF has been planning this crackdown for years awaiting the advent of a suitably liberal president and his administration. Perhaps that is the case. However, the possibility of an SBR amnesty—despite the unconstitutional nature of the parent law—seems to me to be a fairly compassionate way to go about it.
There’s another angle at play here, though. The skeptic will appreciate that this move does potentially bring millions of guns and, more importantly, gun owners into a registration scheme that involves demographic data, fingerprints, and photos. There will be inevitable concerns about this sweeping registration being used as a stepping stone to gun confiscation.
I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist myself. I used to work for the government. The government I worked for wasn’t competent enough to manage a proper sweeping conspiracy without botching it up. However, this is not 1994.
Final Thoughts on the ATF and Pistol Stabilizing Brace
We put-upon American gun guys grumbled at the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. However, unlike 1994 there are nearly 400 million firearms in circulation in America today; 20-30 million of those are “scary” black guns. There are 20 times as many guns in America as there are soldiers serving in every nation on the planet combined. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who tried to force American gun owners to give up their firearms.
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