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On Thursday, gun rights advocates were shocked when the NRA and 25 states filed a challenge to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) pistol brace rule — a gun grab tantamount to an unconstitutional overreach. 

Not only does this gun ruling egregiously overreach into gun owners’ right to bear arms, but it further requires owners of said braces to take one of several draconian steps that includes registering as if they owned a firearm classified by the act. 

Fox News reports. In the wake of two mass shootings, the largest and longest-standing gun rights group is suing the Biden administration over new federal regulations on pistols with stabilizing braces.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is challenging a move by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to regulate guns equipped with stabilizing braces, also known as pistol arm braces, like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act (NFA).). The NRA argues the new rule is “arbitrary” and vague to the point of being an “abuse of power.” 

Jason Ouimet, executive director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action stated ” The bureau is declaring that they will effectively decide on a case-by-case basis whether a firearm is subject to the NFA. Every American gun owner is in danger of potentially facing felony charges at the whim of these bureaucrats and without any new statute in place,”

An alliance of 25 states and SB Tactical are joining the NRA in the lawsuit.

It was introduced as part of Biden’s comprehensive gun crime strategy in April 2021, following the massacre at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman used a firearm with a stabilizing brace to kill 10 people. A mass murderer in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people with a stabilizing brace in 2019. 

The ATF defines a stabilizing braces as an accessory “that provides a surface area that allows the weapon to be fired from the shoulder, so long as other factors that indicate that the firearm is designed, made, and intended to be fired from the shoulder.” 

ATF’s rule, which was finalized on Jan. 13, categorizes pistols with attached stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, which are heavily regulated by Congress because they are both accurate and concealable. Biden has accused the gun industry of attempting to circumvent federal regulations by selling stabilizing braces, which he and his administration claims can “essentially convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle.” 

The gun grab has gone too far. Thursday saw the NRA and 25 states challenge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) pistol brace rule — an outrageous overreach of federal power that blatantly disregards the Constitution our founding fathers wrote. If allowed to stand, this gun ban would declare lawful gun owners criminals for using a pistol stabilizer braces and require them to take one of five illegal actions. It is about time someone stood up for gun rights and said “enough is enough” as this latest effort to strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights is dead wrong. The ATF needs to realize their actions are unconstitutional and unlawful; gun ownership should not be punished but praised in this great nation.

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