(CN) — More than 20 states, a disabled veteran and two gun accessories manufacturers joined The Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition Inc, a gun rights and trade association, in a lawsuit on Thursday against the federal government to try to stop the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from enacting a new rule restricting the use of gun braces.
Gun braces are an accessory that attaches a gun to the shooter’s forearm, stabilizing the gun when it’s fired. It was originally intended for people with physical disabilities to shoot guns, but it’s since been used by beginning shooters, and shooters who don’t have the physical strength to stabilize a gun on their own, and by law enforcement officers, according to the lawsuit.
Millions of people across the country have braces, the lawsuit says, “to achieve safer and more accurate firing.”
After two mass shootings where the gunmen used a gun brace, one in Dayton, Ohio in 2019 that left nine people dead, and one in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado that left 10 people dead in 2021, the Biden administration moved to pass tighter restrictions on gun braces.
The shooter in Colorado used a Ruger AR-556 pistol, a type of AR-15 pistol modified with an arm brace that made the pistol fire like an AR-15 rifle, with more accuracy and more firepower, and more deadly.
In January of 2023, the ATF enacted a rule that classifies guns with braces that are designed to be shot from the shoulder, like a rifle, as “short-barrel rifles,” which are subject to more taxes and more regulation under the National Firearms Act of 1934.
“This rule does not affect “stabilizing braces” that are objectively designed and intended as a “stabilizing brace” for use by individuals with disabilities, and not for shouldering the weapon as a rifle,” a statement by the ATF reads. “Such stabilizing braces are designed to conform to the arm and not as a buttstock. However, if the firearm with the “stabilizing brace” is a short-barreled rifle, it needs to be registered no later than May 31, 2023,” or, gun owners can permanently remove the brace so that it can’t be reattached, destroy the gun, or turn it into their local ATF office.
The lawsuit calls the new rule “arbitrary and capricious on multiple counts,” and that the rule could affect any gun owner with any kind of brace, contradictory to a decade of prior ATF rules around arm braces, a change in which means that after millions of braces have been sold, millions of Americans will automatically become felons if they don’t turn them in or destroy them.
“The reversal will require millions of Americans to choose between the loss of their lawful (and lawfully acquired) firearms, the loss of their privacy, and the risk of criminal penalties,” the lawsuit states.
The state governments of 25 states, including West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming all signed on to the lawsuit, as well as brace manufacturer SB Tactical, another gun accessory manufacturer, B&T USA, and Richard Cicero, a a retired police firearms instructor and “wounded warrior,” as the lawsuit describes, who lost an arm and a leg while serving in Afghanistan.
The ATF said they were unable to comment on the case and instead pointed towards a press statement on their website.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Jan. 6 sentences April 19, 2024 -
