The ATF has decided that pistol braces are no longer a thing we can be trusted with. Apparently, disabled shooters aren’t going to be permitted to use a tool that helped them fire an AR-15 effectively.
Regardless, unless you’re volunteering to be a test case, folks aren’t going to talk about their pistol-braced AR-pattern rifles openly.
Yet the ATF seems to think that it’s not a big deal. They think that 60 percent of gun owners will just roll over.
President Biden’s gun agency, which on Tuesday is expected to unleash the broadest gun control since the 1994 ban on modern sporting rifles, is downplaying the impact of its action in a new report.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in the new assessment that other government reports that millions of gun owners will be impacted are wrong by huge margins.
What’s more, the agency said in a 95-page impact analysis of its 293-page rule regulating AR-style pistols that most owners will give in and register their guns despite online campaigns calling for a mass boycott of the new rules and threats from Congress and Second Amendment groups to immediately file suits to stop implementation of the changes.
…
It estimated that of those with the firearms, 826,000 will decide to register their 1.6 million weapons with the rest turning them into ATF or destroying or altering them.
I’m sorry, I need an ambulance.
I just injured myself laughing at this.
Look, there’s absolutely no chance that anywhere near that many people will register their brace-equipped pistols. Yes, many will remove the brace in order to comply with the law, but I seriously doubt any of them will register them with the ATF.
After all, if they were cool with undergoing the NFA process, they’d have just registered the guns as short-barrel rifles in the first place. The only advantage of the brace for many gun owners, particularly those who aren’t disabled in some way, is that they didn’t have to register the guns.
A lot of gun owners don’t want Uncle Sam even knowing they have guns, after all.
Instead of registering, a lot of them are just going to keep their mouths shut and fly under the radar. They’re not stupid and many of them were prepared to do this with other guns in the past. Yes, it’s illegal, but there’s a line many gun owners aren’t going to cross just to remain law-abiding.
Now, understand that I’m not recommending anyone break the law. What I will do is say that I wouldn’t make a move until the courts have had their shot at this, which we all know is going to happen, and maybe not even then.
Frankly, there’s no gun on Earth I want more than one that the government doesn’t want me to have. While I’ve never gone the NFA route myself, mostly because I don’t want to have to play “Mother, May I” with my rights, I damn sure wouldn’t go that route with a gun I already own.
The ATF is deluding itself, and pretty much anyone in the gun community will tell you the same.
Especially since this is generally unenforceable in the first place. Pistol braces weren’t serialized so far as I’m aware, so there’s no chance there’s any way to tell who has such a gun and who doesn’t. So, those who have them just have to keep their heads down and literally no one will know otherwise.
Sure, there will be idiots who announce what they’re doing, but if they’re fine rotting in prison, that’s on them. I suspect everyone else will just shake their heads and shoot their now illegal guns where no one can see anything.
