by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has followed through on their plan to turn millions of lawful gun owners into felons in the name of “public safety” by reclassifying pistols with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, effectively expanding the unconstitutional national gun registry.
Stabilizing braces are devices that can be attached to pistols to aid the user in balancing their arm. Originally created to help people with disabilities, the accessory is now more popular amongst mainstream shooters who use them to adapt pistols into guns that can be shot from the shoulder, which has been legal to do in the past. Now, there’s a big hoop to jump through if you don’t want to be hit with fines and/or jail time.
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As the Department of Justice first proposed on June 7, 2021 and put into practice on January 13, 2023, those who wish to add stabilizers to their pistols “must comply with the heightened regulations on those dangerous and easily concealable weapons.”
Under the new rules, any pistol modified with such a brace is now considered to be a short-barreled rifle. As the DOJ explained themselves, the National Firearms Act (NFA) has, since the 1930s, “imposed requirements on short-barreled rifles because they are more easily concealable than long-barreled rifles but have more destructive power than traditional handguns.”
“Beyond background checks and serial numbers, those heightened requirements include taxation and registration requirements that include background checks for all transfers including private transfers,” the statement reads. The tax required for anyone making or buying a short-barreled rifle is $200.
The Biden administration has generously granted all of the impacted manufacturers, dealers, and individuals a 120-day period to comply—by registering the firearm, removing the brace, surrendering the firearm to ATF, or destroying it.
Attorney General Merrick Garland “directed” the ATF to “address the issue of stabilizing braces” within 60 days at an April 2021 event with President Joe Biden, prompting the swift action taken by the DOJ in announcing the proposed rule the next month.
Biden had also previously selected former Obama advisor Steven Dettelbach to serve as the head of the ATF, who helped the administration reach their goal of passing yet another gun control law.
While the bureau claims the new rule won’t impact stabilizing braces “that are objectively designed and intended as a ‘stabilizing brace’ for use by individuals with disabilities, and not for shouldering the weapon as a rifle,” there is no “objective” standard listed for what disabled people are allowed to carry, or what is “intended” as an aid.
Borrowing an Unconstitutional Policy From FDR
The history of tyrannical politicians attempting to force every gun owner to register their weapons with the government is long. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered implementing a ban on fully-automatic firearms, but was faced with pushback from the DOJ, which argued that it would violate the Second Amendment.
To compromise, the administration instead pushed for legislation to require the registration of fully-automatic firearms, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and firearm sound suppressors. This idea became law in the form of the National Firearms Act of 1934, which is what the current-day DOJ and ATF have used to justify their expansion of the national gun registry for law-abiding citizens.
Roosevelt was set on creating a national firearm registry for every gun, demonstrated by his appointment of Homer Cummings to the position of Attorney General, who helped draft the NFA.
“Show me the man who doesn’t want his gun registered and I will show you a man who shouldn’t have a gun,” Cummings wrote in 1938, the year he pushed for separate handgun registration legislation.
Fast forward by approximately 50 years, and then-President Ronald Reagan signs the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, which federally prohibits national gun registries. Though Reagan faltered on the Second Amendment at times (see: the Mulford Act), this was a good policy that was unfortunately ignored by anti-gun politicians.
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