GRNC Alert 6/11/21: Stop ATF AR-15 Ban!

As promised by Joe Biden and his Second Amendment-hating Attorney General, Merrick Garland, the latest Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been released by the BATFE, this one purporting to regulate “pistol stabilizing braces,” but which will actually make accidental felons out of tens of thousands of gun owners who will be unable to figure out to comply. 

At issue are AR-15-type pistols with the stabilizing braces originally intended to help wounded warriors shoot relatively heavy guns. An estimated 3 million AR-15 pistols with braces are now in circulation. 

Biden’s administration wants to make as many as possible into “short-barreled rifles” (SBRs), which are subject to onerous regulation under the 1934 National Firearms Act. Although the ATF calls the proposed standards “objective,” they are anything but. 

A point system would be applied via a worksheet that looks like a tax form, with anything accruing four or more points would automatically become an SBR. But even two points would be a “moderate” indicator that the firearm is intended to be used from the shoulder, meaning gun owners could never be certain they are within the law. 

And what racks up points? Sights, for one. Flip-up iron sights get you 25% of the way to SBR status, and reflex (red dot) sights get you half way there. (The ATF wants to assure you can’t actually hit what you shoot at.) Other no-no’s include weight (7.5 lbs max), overall length (26”) or “length of pull” (a term that actually applies only to rifle stocks, not pistols). 

Ultimately, nearly every AR-15 pistol in America will be re-classified as an SBR, requiring owners to modify them, register them via an absurdly difficult process as NFA weapons, or either turn them in or destroy them. 

We need you to register your opposition no later than September 8 but preferably RIGHT NOW.

• Goto: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/06/10/2021-12176/factoring-criteria-for-firearms-with-attached-stabilizing-braces

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reserves the right to preclude classification as a pistol with a “stabilizing braces” for any firearm that achieves an apparent qualifying score but is an attempt to make a “short-barreled rifle” and circumvent the GCA or NFA.”

In other words, no matter what you do, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats can decide that it’s an SBR anyway and the owner has violated the law. All of this without the necessity of obtaining the consent of the governed through their elected representatives.

The BATF seems to have forgotten that it works for the people and does not have the power to simply change the law at the whim of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. Who do you think you are?

Respectfully,