ATF Pistol Brace Rule Threatens Millions With Felony Charges

On Friday, January 13, the Biden administration’s DOJ and ATF enacted perhaps the most anti-gun rule in a generation. By “clarifying” that a certain firearm accessory, the pistol brace, is illegal without special registration and regulation, they have pulled the rug from under millions of Americans who own them. If these people don’t act to register or destroy their property or “surrender” their firearms within 120 days, they will be considered federal felons. The magnitude of this rule change is hard to understate, both in the numbers of Americans affected and the legal jeopardy they will soon be facing.

Pistol Brace – Register Or Else

A pistol brace affixes to pistols to make them more stable. Generally, guns that aren’t shotguns are classified as pistols or rifles. So-called “short-barrelled rifles” have long been treated differently under the law – with much greater regulation than long rifles, including a special registration and a $200 tax for purchase or transfer. What changed on Friday was that the ATF announced millions of devices it previously said did not convert a pistol into a short-barrelled rifle now do and that their previous pronouncements were incorrect. Whoopsie!

According to the ATF, the agency’s first guidance on a pistol brace was in 2012. When asked by a gun dealer how to classify the devices: The agency concluded that the submitted “brace,” when attached to a firearm, did “not convert that weapon to be fired from the shoulder and would not alter the classification of a pistol or other firearm,” and therefore, “such a firearm would not be subject to NFA [National Firearms Act] controls.”- READ MORE