Well, we knew it was coming.

Looks like I cannot post a .pdf so I'll work on getting this online unless someone else beats me to it.

Cut and paste makes it unreadable.

So it's official, pistol braces are illegal now? Or essentially SBRs?

Neither yet, they just published what they think and are looking for input.
Lets see if this works:
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File

I was shocked that upon reading this they did, somewhat, deal with the vagueness in this.  That MUST be the undoing of it all.  The individual arguments hold up okay but looking at this as a whole, it does not.  Pretty much there are no specifics just generalities which cannot stand.

I get that they realize a grey area was found and used but it was.  Its nice that you can SBR your gun and not pay any taxes but that's not okay.  I don't want them knowing what I have already.  I do not want to ask permission to move my gun across state lines.

They already know I have a suppressor.  What I bought legally, when it was legal should be the end of it.

Making it illegal now isn't right but don't hold me hostage to that.

I feel bad for the manufacturers.  They did the right thing.

I'm sure ALL of us will comment.  Right?

As stupid as this is, and as much as I want to say FATF...... everyone had to know this was coming. Manufacturers just kept pushing and pushing......the "brace" went from a physical feature, to nothing more than the description.

When people are making adjustable "braces" with butt pads on the end of them, showing them used as stocks in their advertisements.......you had to know this was coming.

I don't agree with it......but I'm surprised it's taken the FATF this long to come after them........

Can the millions of Americans that have braces and the companies that produce them sue the ATF?

Sure, just like the Bump Stock folks did.

Meh, NFA is stupid.  16" barrel is arbitrary.  Your position on this only sets us up to lose.  You need to push back on the fact the NFA is stupid and unconstitutional and not just prepare to lose more and say everyone should expect to lose more.

Suing is for nations ruled by laws.   Which we are not.

Correct. The whole point of sbrs was to limit  turning rifles into handguns. Taxing handguns was one of the original points of the NFA, not a short rifle.

The repeated references to a pistol only being fired with one hand is concerning, too. This whole document is opening up a shit ton of cans of worms.

Yeah,  the truth is not many people shoot a handgun with one hand.  Handguns are "capable" of being used one handed.  I practice that way sometime but the vast majority of people use the off hand to steady the handgun.  I am glad I have one SBR so I don't wind up having to toss an upper.  The most disturbing thing about this memorandum is that it looks to me to be basically a "gotcha" thing they can pull out when they want to harass people.  NOTHING is set in stone in it so you never know if you are violating the law.  I am not tall and one of my best friends is...does my braced pistol become a SBR for me but a pistol for him because he's bigger?  What a cluster.

Since not all states allow Sbrs but those states allow pistols, will this possibly open up sbrs to all? If they were allowed everywhere we could possibly do away with the stupid no crossing state lines with them rule. I know it’s to practical of a thing for the .gov to do it.

The law says designed to be fired with one one hand. That means no grip for weak hand

So how do we make this section of their little diatribe work for us?

"Consequently, ATF agrees that there are legitimate uses for certain “stabilizing braces.”"

This depends on your state legislature.  I see you’re in Oregon.  I don’t think you stand a chance.  Your only hope is this now solidly conservative SCOTUS clearing up once and for all “shall not be infringed”.  I had little hope with Roberts on the court.  Coney-Barrett makes me a little more optimistic.

Fact:  pistol braces and AR pistols are not illegal.

This is a request fir public comment.  So comment.  Don’t bitch here.

Most likely they will allow braces with certain restrictions and braces that are really stocks with a Velcro’s strap will be subject to the NFA.

Action:


1) wrote yiur thiights and send to ATF

2) buy an AR pistol tomorrow, and e crave it and file Form1, add a stock when you’re tax stamp comes back.

3) Yiu will enjoy the stock much more I. The long run.

If you delay on #2, you will be stuck buying an SBR and waiting 11 months fir your gun

I'm starting to believe they don't have our best interests at heart.....

In all seriousness, the best option is DO NOTHING.

They want people to scramble and grovel at their collective feet.

Do not.

So not that I agree with the ATF’s position on braces at all, but when/how can I register my braced firearms as SBR’s for free?  I have an HK SP5, a 12.5” grendel AR, and an 11.5” 5.56 AR that I’ll stamp right now...and planned to anyways.

In all seriousness, that would be the worst thing you you could do.

Well written letters matter, especially in quantity.

Recall ATF-41 was going to require CLEO sign off for all. Enough well reasoned letters caused them to drop that.

Gun owners were well organized for that, wrote good, concise letters and effected positive change. Same needs to happen here.

I imagine the success of ATF-41 is why they are doing this with little notice, a short comment period over holidays. They want to prevent gun owners from making a good response.

One of the most factual statements I have ever read on this forum.

I agree with Renegade 100% of the time but the CLEO sign off got dropped from the 41-F (P) take your pick, because the rule had a shall sign clause that all LEO organizations wanted removed. They did not want their name on a document that could come back to haunt them if someone went postal with a NFA item. I got this straight from a ranking member of the Sheriff"s association.

It will be interesting to see which models of the braces will be considered legal or if they all get flushed.

?

There was no shall sign clause. It was the same sign-off clause individuals had to get extended to corps & trusts.

Attached File


And as you can see in last sentence, they also proposed removing the language LEOs objected too.

It is important to discern exactly what the ATF's motivation is.

If they were truly concerned with registering these so called dangerous firearms, then they would streamline the process and remove the onerous hurdles and the expensive fees which disproportionately hurt minorities and impoverished families.  If you could do your SBR paperwork online in ten minutes and it cost twelve dollars (a fair fee to support the infrastructure necessary), then the brace would never have been developed or brought to market.

If the goal is to make it difficult for law abiding citizens to obtain these commonly owned self defense tools, then they are engaged in unconstitutional conduct and should cease operations immediately.

Honestly, the best solution to the problem is to remove SBRs from the NFA entirely.   Then some group that represents gun owners, such as the NRA () could use that momentum to attack the unfair legislation against hearing safety devices.

I guess anyone that has one, if you speak out in the future...


“And here’s what we know so far, shrimpmoney hasn’t paid taxes to register illegal weapons.”

The dream of all governing bodies is for everything to be illegal, then they only apply the law to those they don't like.  It's like a dictatorships, but lawful.  Win-win!

So when you all write your comment letters (and you need to do so, don't just complain here) main points to bring up are:

Horse is out of the barn - if ATF was going to do anything, they should have years ago, before 100 of thousands of braced pistols were in general use.

Regulatory coherency - regulatory bodies should not change rulings based on whatever wind is blowing.  The ATF went from OKing braces, then saying they were OK to occasionally shoulder, to implying that SBR's should be taken off the NFA, to now saying that braced pistols are NFA items.  Which is it?

No clear standard of when a brace is OK - their proposed regulations mention a series of subjective items like weight, length of the brace, where on a person's arm the brace ends if held with one hand, magnification and eye relief of optics.  It's like having a speed sign that says "Be Safe", then it's up to the cop to judge if you were going at a safe speed.  Regulations need to be clearly defined, with numbers and definitions, not various subjective phrases.

No need for change of regulations - ATF needs to explain how the change will impact the safety of the public - are various crimes being committed with braced pistols and if they are, how would this change prevent those crimes?  Focusing on gun hobbyist who buy a braced pistol and take it to the range to shoot paper targets is not a good use of law enforcement time and effort.  For that matter, how many non-stamped SBR charges are brought every year by ATF?  if few or none, then why the push to make braced pistols an NFA item, when violations of the NFA for SBR's are not prosecuted?

I noticed the same trend over the last few years. They went. From these ugly chunky things with straps that barely resembled a something that could be shouldered. To “braces” that were nearly identical to butt stocks in function and feature.

They also used to be a after market add on, but in time literally every AR manufacturer was churning out backed firearms.  I know they were just meeting the demand. But to much attention was bound to cause a problem.

edit: not gd.

I have been telling people this for years, plenty of instances where the judicial branch isn't interpreting the law, it's re-writing the an existing law to fit the liberal narrative.

I am I reading right that it was withdrawn?  If so I wonder when it will be back.

I can’t seem to make the link work.

MAC is reporting yes.

NSSF reporting it as well:

My friends and I have discussed this very thing. We all went the SBR route as the stock is, well better. Building a clone gun with a brace is also, retarded. While we all did do at least one pistol for the pistol benefits, no serious coin was invested as we felt this day was coming. Now the day has come, but just as quickly left, but don’t think it won’t be back, and back with a vengeance (Biden/Harris), it would have been nice to be addressed now under a friendlier climate,then what’s coming.

Owners posting on all things social media has not helped either, seeing these at every protest or support gathering hasn’t helped. I am a 07/02, I had my last 2 year BATFE inspection a while back, I asked the agent who is really a cool agent and gun owner, what is to stop me from taking one of my SOPMOD stocks, attach a Velcro strap on it and call it a brace, she looked at me and said nothing, and it may or may not be acceptable as well. I asked her how would I know, she said you’d have to submit it, then wait and see. She also informed me that very few of the braces have actually been submitted for a actual approval letter. She said then it’s a problem we have to and will deal with.