Except for RINOs Rob Portman and Susan Collins, every other Republican senator demanded in a letter that Biden drop a proposed ATF rule. The rule would “turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight” and would become “the largest executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme in American history.”
The rule requires millions to do one of the following: pay a $200 tax on pistols with a stabilizing brace, convert the pistol to a rifle, destroy the weapon or give it to the government.
The Senators warned the reclassification would mean owners who don’t register their guns would face felony charges and up to 10 years in federal prison per gun.
The letter comes as negative public comments have flooded in on the proposal. Americans have already submitted over 100,000 comments and dozens of the comments reviewed by The Reload showed universal opposition to the proposal.
But Biden indicated he won’t pull the rule. Only this past Wednesday, despite only two mass shooting crimes committed with braced pistols, Biden doubled down. It’s clear the rule won’t do a thing to stop these mass shootings, but that’s not why they are taking guns from legal gun owners.
Who the hay is the ATF to do this? We now have them as masters too? They should just be fighting criminals. The big government is giving every agency lawless power over law-abiding citizens, robbing us of freedom.
Like everything else Democrats do, this is aimed at incrementally destroying our Second Amendment.
The Reload transcribed the letter which reads in part:
“To one unfamiliar with stabilizing braces, ATF’s proposed rule and the accompanying regulatory analysis suggest that these braces are dangerous alterations to firearms designed to help criminals evade federal law,” the senators said. “Nothing could be further from the truth, and ATF knows that. After all, it has repeatedly blessed their design, manufacture, sale, and use.”
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“The impetus for the manufacture of stabilizing braces was to assist disabled combat veterans in shooting large pistol platforms that were otherwise too cumbersome for a disabled shooter to use,” the letter continued. “In 2012, ATF announced that attaching a stabilizing brace to an AR-type pistol did not convert that pistol-regulated by the [Gun Control Act]-into a short-barreled rifle (SBR) regulated by the [National Firearm Act] and subject to the NFA’s taxation and registration regime. In 2015, ATF announced that attaching a stabilizing brace to a pistol that could allow the pistol to be fired from the shoulder converted that pistol into an SBR. Just two years later, however, in a letter to a manufacturer, ATF appeared to rescind its indefensible 2015 ruling. ATF thereafter issued private letter rulings blessing a wide array of stabilizing brace configurations from a host of manufacturers.”
The senators noted that the move by the Biden administration comes as “a crime wave is sweeping America.”
“These aren’t broken-windows crimes; they are violent crimes like murder, assault, and robbery,” the letter said. “But rather than cracking down on the criminals who are turning America’s cities into warzones, ATF and the Department of Justice have decided to go after law-abiding gun owners who are minding their own business and using equipment that ATF seemingly blessed in 2017.”
“This is plain wrong,” the letter concluded. “The proposed rule is worse than merely abdicating your responsibility to protect Americans from criminals; you’re threatening to turn law-abiding Americans into criminals by imposing the largest executive branch-initiated gun registration and confiscation program in American history. We urge you to turn back. Correct this mistake and withdraw the proposed rule.”
THE LETTER
Letter to AG and Acting Director of ATF 6.24.2021 on Scribd
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