Act Daily News
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Attorney General Merrick Garland and Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), introduced new laws Friday that might topic pistol-stabilizing braces to further laws, together with larger taxes, longer ready durations and registration.
Gun management proponents argue that stabilizing braces – which will be hooked up to pistols – successfully rework a pistol right into a short-barreled rifle, that are closely regulated underneath the National Firearms Act (NFA).
The rule will go into impact as quickly as it’s printed within the Federal Register.
“Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to stricter legal requirements,” Garland mentioned Friday throughout a name with reporters to stipulate the brand new rule. “Policy makers understood then what we know is still true today. Short-barreled rifles present a deadly combination: They are easier to conceal than rifles, but they are more powerful and lethal than pistols.”
“The final rule submitted today makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers and individuals cannot evade the important public safety protections passed by Congress simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles,” he mentioned.
According to the Justice Department, producers, sellers and particular person gun homeowners have 120 days to register tax-free any present short-barreled rifles coated by the rule. They also can take away the stabilizing brace or give up coated short-barreled rifles to the ATF, the division mentioned.
“This rule enhances public safety … and helps ensure compliance with the firearms laws that Congress passed almost a century ago,” Dettelbach mentioned on the identical name. The rule makes clear, Dettelbach mentioned, that “when pistols are accessorized with certain stabilizing braces, those pistols are converted into rifles” and must be handled as short-barreled rifles underneath the regulation.
Restrictions on stabilizing braces have been hotly debated after they had been proposed by the ATF in 2020, when the bureau advised a brand new rule that might regulate pistol braces underneath the NFA. The 2020 proposal sparked a significant backlash from the teams such because the National Rifle Association.
Republican lawmakers additionally spoke out in opposition to the proposal and despatched a letter to then-Attorney General William Barr saying that the proposed regulation was “alarming and jeopardizes law abiding gun owners across the country.” The ATF withdrew the proposed regulation after the letter was launched.
The proposal was given new life in 2021 after shooters in Boulder, Colorado, and in Dayton, Ohio, used pistols with stabilizing braces. At the time, Garland unveiled a number of proposals geared toward curbing gun violence, together with reupping the restriction on pistol braces.
“These requirements are important public safety measures because they regulate the transfer of these dangerous weapons and help ensure they do not end up in wrong hands,” the Justice Department mentioned on the time. “The proposed rule would clarify when these attached accessories convert pistols into weapons covered by these heightened regulations.”