A federal court has smacked down legislation from Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration that seeks to crack down on pistol braces.
However, the court blocked Biden’s effort to apply unconstitutional regulation and taxation of pistol braces, the Washington Examiner reported.
Thursday’s decision is the latest loss for Biden in his ongoing attempts to restrict gun rights.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had attempted to tax and regulate weapons with additional stabilizing arm braces.
The modification effectively turns a pistol into a rifle.
Biden’s ATF argues that adding a pistol brace to a firearm would make it subject to the National Firearms Act.
The ATF previously allowed the modification without additional scrutiny or fees.
However, it recently reversed course without an explanation or warning to include additional registration and a $200 fee.
Judge Reed O’Connor believes this was unfair.
In the 12-page decision, the judge at the Texas-based U.S. District Court wrote:
“The court finds that the adaptation of the final rule was arbitrary and capricious for two reasons.
“First, the defendants did not provide a detailed justification for their reversal of the agency’s longstanding position.
“And second, the final rule’s standards are impermissibly vague.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition celebrated the court’s smackdown in an eloquent social media post.
“ATF broke the law by being overreaching sneaky pricks,” the post said.
“Therefore, the right thing for the Court to do was throw the Rule in the trash.
“The Court threw the Pistol Brace Rule in the trash.”
FPC got a win today. And I’ve been getting asked like 10 times a day how I have a pistol brace still.
Anyways shout out to the @gunpolicy legal team they use for getting us some clarity pic.twitter.com/w1RUFfYHqq
— Reno May (@RenoMayGuns) June 13, 2024
The justification for the rule is always the same.
The Left and anti-gun activists claim that certain types of weapons are more likely to be used in a mass shooting.
However, that isn’t factual in this case at all, considering very few shootings have occurred using them.
Moreover, there were more than 10 million such weapons in circulation in the U.S. without much worry about the weapons committing a crime.
Tellingly, only 300,000 owners were willing to fork over the $200 fee when the ATF provided a grace period for the rule.
The modification is mostly used for self-defense or range shooting due to the smaller, more manageable size compared to an actual AR-15-style rifle.
Users can adjust the pistol brace stock and make the weapon more like a short-barrelled rifle.
Biden has been after Second Amendment rights for the entirety of his administration.
The ATF rule about pistol braces is just one of many attacks on the right to bear arms.
Unfortunately for Biden, this has not been his week in the world of Second Amendment restrictions.
A ban on bump stocks, which allow rapid firing of semiautomatic weapons, was overturned at the U.S. Supreme Court Friday, CNN reported.
The ban was put in place following a 2017 deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas where a gunman using the modification took 58 lives.
The high court ruled 6-3 in favor of striking down the ban.
“A bump stock does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does, ” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion.
“Even with a bump stock, a semiautomatic rifle will fire only one shot for every ‘function of the trigger.'”
Biden’s agenda is losing in court many times when it’s challenged.
However, the administration is by no means done restricting the rights of citizens.
READ MORE – Biden Heckled during Slurring Anti-Gun Speech, Repeats Same Word 15 Times
