Over the weekend, the Biden administration used the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to go after law-abiding gun owners, passing new unconstitutional regulations that will require around 10 million owners of an estimated 40 million firearms to register or surrender their guns.
The ATF finalized a new regulation Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act. The new “rule”, which goes into effect 120 days after it is published in the Federal Register, demands gun owners register, alter, destroy or surrender their brace-configured pistols or face a potential 10-year jail sentence and $10,000 fine.
Announcing the rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that stabilizing brace accessories, which were designed to help disabled combat veterans enjoy recreational shooting, transform pistols into short-barreled rifles.
“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” Garland said. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”
“Certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder,” said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. “Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.”
“This rule enhances public safety and prevents people from circumventing the laws Congress passed almost a century ago. In the days of Al Capone, Congress said back then that short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns should be subjected to greater legal requirements than most other guns,” said Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Yes, they are using Al Capone to justify making over 10 million law-abiding gun owners into criminals!
“The Biden administration chose to shred the Constitution today,” the National Rifle Association said.
The Biden Administration chose to shred the Constitution today. @ATFHQ submitted their pistol brace “final rule” to the Federal Register and demanded Americans either “register” or “surrender” their lawfully owned rifles.
Joe Biden is an enemy of our Second Amendment. pic.twitter.com/fY8SsqtqH2
— NRA (@NRA)
Gun Owners of America vowed to file a lawsuit challenging Biden’s new ATF regulation.
Gun Owners of America, which bills itself as the only “no-compromise” gun lobby in Washington, D.C., vowed to file a lawsuit challenging Biden’s new ATF regulation.
“This admin continues to find ways to attack gun owners. We will continue to work with our industry partners to amplify the disapproving voices in the firearms industry and [Gun Owners Foundation], our sister legal arm, will be filing suit in the near future,” said Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America.
The Congressional Research Service estimates there are between 10-40 million pistol-brace-equipped firearms. The ATF’s new rule requires nearly all of them to be registered, turned in, or destroyed for owners to avoid felony charges. https://t.co/ULdkCNunGs
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski)
On his website, The Reload, Stephen Gutowski noted the legal problems the new rule could encounter.
“The Biden Administration’s decision to move forward with the ban comes after hundreds of thousands of comments opposing the regulation were left during its public comment period. It also comes in the immediate aftermath of the Fifth Circuit ruling against the Trump-era bump stock ban. That policy was implemented through the same rulemaking process and after the ATF had also previously declared bump stocks to fall outside the NFA’s purview, which could foreshadow legal problems for the new pistol brace rule,” he wrote.
Under the new Biden rule, any firearm that is “designed or redesigned made or remade and intended to be fired from the shoulder” will be considered an Short-barreled rifle and subject to this new “rule”. It also means that disabled gun owners who require assistive devices will now be made into felons if they don’t register or destroy their legally purchased firearm as an SBR.
This is a one armed disabled veteran. The ATF just told this man by their ruling today that he will be a felon in 120 days if he doesn’t register his legally purchased firearm as an SBR because of the stabilizing brace. You know what this registration requires? Fingerprints… pic.twitter.com/z9OcDc7Hiy
— The Typical Liberal #1 In Exposing Liberal Lies (@the_typical_lib)