Biden’s “Pistol Brace” is No More After FPC, DOJ Settlement

While we’re still waiting on the formal repeal of several Biden-era rules put in place by the ATF, the rule treating most brace-equipped pistols as short barreled rifles has been officially erased. 

The Firearms Policy Coalition says it has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to dismiss the DOJ’s appeal in Mock v. Bondi, which puts an end to the government’s defense of the rule. 

A Fifth Circuit panel had already vacated the rule, but DOJ had continued its appeal. Now that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has agreed to end its defense of the rule, the millions of Americans who . 

In a press release, FPC President Brandon Combs called the decision a “great day for freedom and the American people.”

“The dismissal of this appeal should be the final nail in the coffin of this unconstitutional Biden ATF assault on gun owners. As we explained in the case filings, braced pistols are not ‘short-barreled rifles’. But either way, they are unquestionably arms protected under the Second Amendment. We are thrilled to have secured this important win for liberty and excited to take on even more unconstitutional laws so you can exercise your rights when, where, and how you choose.”

“The government is finally retreating from the Biden Administration’s patently unlawful effort to turn millions of peaceable people into felons by decree,” said FPC Action Foundation President Cody J. Wisniewski, an attorney for the challengers. “This horrible rule was a perversion of our system of limited government, so we’re glad to see this case resolved in favor of liberty and the rule of law.”

“This is a clear-cut victory and monumental step in preserving gun rights for future generations and safeguarding the firearms ecosystem from regulatory overreach,” said David Farrell, a Maxim Defense vice president. “This important achievement is the result of tireless dedication from the entire litigation team, not to mention the many supporters who have stood with us every single day. When we fight boldly and stand united, freedom prevails.”

Before the Biden administration adopted the rule that treated most pistols equipped with stabilizing braces as SBRs, the agency had some vague and fuzzy guidelines surrounding the use of braces. 

As FPC noted in its original complaint, in 2012 the ATF’s Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division found that attaching a brace “would not alter the classification of the pistol or other firearm.” Two years later, FATD advised that it “does not classify weapons based on how a particular individual uses a weapon and that merely firing an AR-type pistol from the shoulder did not reclassify it as a short-barreled rifle.”

Then, in an October 2014 letter, ATF momentarily reversed its position,stating that actions such as concealment on the person or the subjective use of a device as a shoulder stock, rather than the objective design criteria, could transformthe weapon’s classification. Later still, in a March 2017 letter, ATF reiterated that “stabilizingbraces are perfectly legal accessories for large handguns or pistols” but that, “when employed as a shoulder stock with a firearm with a barrel less than 16 inches in length, the result would be making an unregistered NFA firearm.”

The Biden rule dropped that test and imposed a rule that basically encouraged owners of brace-equipped pistols to consider them unregistered NFA items. The rule contained a six-factor “balancing” test that relied on subjective determinations rather than providing gun owners with clear, bright lines about what would turn a legal brace-equipped pistol into an illegal short-barreled rifle. 

About a half-dozen lawsuits were filed in response to the ATF’s action, arguing that the agency’s rule violated the Administrative Procedures Act. Given the success that FPC and other 2A groups had already demonstrated, it’s likely that the rule would have been vacated by the Supreme Court in the future, but the dismissal of the litigation saves taxpayers money… and gun owners a lot of time and unnecessary grief. Millions of gun owners could have potentially faced charges for their brace-equipped pistols, but now freedom and common sense have prevalied… at least on this issue. 

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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