As expected, the ATF’s extraordinary overreach declaring that pistols with braces are now rifles to be registered under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) is being met with outrage and lawsuits across the land.
The ATF — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — knew it was coming and wrote the rule anyway. Anti-gun Attorney General Merrick Garland endorsed it, saying that “keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the [Justice] Department’s highest priorities.”
This despite receiving nearly a quarter of a million negative comments from citizens during the open public-response period prior to the rule becoming effective. This despite a letter from the Senate Republican Caucus telling Garland that the new rule, if he signed it, “would turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight, and would constitute the largest Executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme in American history.”
