New ATF Power Play Could Impact Millions Of Gun Owners
The proposed rule change won’t be officially published until Friday, but a draft document of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives’ new plans for pistols with stabilizing braces has been published to the Federal Register, and gun owners, Second Amendment activists, and manufacturers of the devices are already crying foul.
In the ATF’s proposed rule change, the agency outlines several supposedly objective factors that will determine whether a handgun equipped with a pistol stabilizing brace is considered a pistol or a short-barreled rifle that must be registered under the National Firearms Act.
The problem is that while the ATF outlines what those many factors are (caliber; weight; length; attachment method; and even after-market accessories like scopes and sights, to name a few), the agency doesn’t provide gun owners with any specifics that would take the guessing out of whether or not the ATF would consider the gun a pistol or an item that must be registered under the National Firearms Act.