The NRA is the 800-pound gorilla of the gun rights movement. While some are less than thrilled with the organization, the fact remains that it’s still the big dog on this side of the debate.

It’s unsurprising that the organization is less than pleased with the ATF’s recent ruling on pistol braces.

Yet unless you saw what they said on Twitter, it’s easy to have missed the NRA’s response.

Well, now they’ve gone into more depth than you can in a tweet, but it’s clear they’re not fans of the rule.

NRA has been repeatedly warning about this pending decision since June of 2021, when ATF first published its new proposed rulemaking on any pistols equipped with a “stabilizing brace.” Upon the announcement of the final rule on Jan. 13, 2023, the NRA immediately spoke out against the drastic change that was made without any legislative action; it was made by bureaucrats at the request of a president who wants to ban many commonly owned firearms.

“The Biden Administration chose to shred the Constitution today,” the NRA tweeted right after the announcement. “@ATFHQ submitted their pistol brace ‘final rule’ to the Federal Register and demanded Americans either ‘register’ or ‘surrender’ their lawfully owned rifles.

“Joe Biden is an enemy of our Second Amendment.”

In a news alert to members, NRA’s Institute for Legislative action wrote, ”While it is not the role of an administrative agency to add to a congressionally enacted statutory definition, doing so in such an arbitrary and nonsensical manner is especially damaging to the rule of law.”

The NRA also noted that the organization is preparing litigation on this matter.

And really, they should be.

Frankly, there’s no reason for short-barrel rifles to be included on the NFA registry in the first place. The truth is that bad guys can shorten firearms barrels easily enough without going through anyone else, so the law does little to nothing about criminal actions.

Plus, frankly, long guns aren’t the preferred weapon for criminals by any stretch of the imagination.

So yeah, this rule is absolute BS, and I’m glad to see the NRA is going to challenge it. Considering that the Fifth Circuit has overturned a similar bump stock ban by the ATF, there’s little reason to believe this challenge won’t be successful as well.

Of course, neither fight is really over. It won’t be until the Supreme Court steps in and presents the smackdown on the ATF, a smackdown long overdue in many people’s opinion, myself included.

Regardless of how anyone feels about the NRA, this is something we should all be able to rally behind. We need to unite to take on Biden’s ATF and their efforts to restrict our rights.

Considering some of the ATF’s recent shenanigans, we really do need to see them brought down a peg or 12, and losing a series of lawsuits over their rule changes should be a fine way to start that process up.

Abolishing them would be better, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.