I wonder if Biden’s next Executive Order will be to ban reversible jackets. What about telescopic umbrellas and canes?
Same way it is valuable to turn millions of felons into voters, it is valuable to turn millions of voters into felons.
So, the ATF basically wants to say that the length of your barrel, operating mechanism, caliber size, etc… none of that makes a rifle a rifle, it’s the stock that differentiates a pistol from a rifle?
Seems to run counter to what I’ve always heard about rifles.
I wonder, if you have one of those AKs with no butt-stock, is it now a pistol?
So here are the actual proposed rules, in all 71 pages of glory. I know there will be lots of ire and political reactions here, but would some subset of the community be willing to help figure out what this all actually means? I’ve read through, and as near as I can figure, they are trying to make sure that stabilizing braces are actually being used for, well, stabilizing. That means fins are out, as are braces and straps that don’t fit around the arm. In the text, they also mention that adding an optic or red-dot clearly signals that the gun is being used to shoot two handed, but I don’t see that you lose points on the scorecards for either. Can folks who speak bureacracy help here?
I think the meat of the issue is in three sample scorecards that they provide towards the middle of the document, but I’m pretty well lost in the rest.
If I click on the link, will I be automatically entered in the ATF lottery?
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) is the federal agency primarily responsible for administering and enforcing the criminal and regulatory provisions of the federal laws pertaining to destructive devices (bombs), explosives, and arson.”
Is the ATF enforcing or in effect, creating new laws?
It is, by ATF definition, a pistol, same as the Shockwave. Yes, a butt stock is effectively the difference. The ATF rules on what is a rifle, shotgun, pistol, AOW, can be a bit confusing at times, and my personal opinion, quite stupid.
This is a pdf from the ATF that includes the definitions of the various firearms, some shown below. IN the pdf it further explains how overall length and barrel length affects how the ATF defines the firearm.
The term “Pistol” means a weapon originally designed, made, and intended to fire a projectile (bullet) from one or more barrels when held in one hand, and having:
- a chamber(s) as an integral part(s) of, or permanently aligned with, the bore(s);
- and a short stock designed to be gripped by one hand at an angle to and extending below the line of the bore(s).
This is the ATF’s definition of a rifle:
The term “Rifle” means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed metallic cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger.
The term “Shotgun” means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder, and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed shotgun shell to fire through a smooth bore either a number of ball shot or a single projectile for each single pull of the trigger.
[Edit] So if you hold your handgun in this manner, below, the ATF will determine that you no longer have a pistol, and will prosecute for not having the appropriate tax stamp? 
President Joe Biden’s DOJ claimed that stabilizing braces “make it easy for people to convert pistols into these more dangerous weapons without going through the statute’s background check and registration requirements.”
So what’s more “dangerous,” a firearm can be controlled more easily, and is therefore is inherently more accurate, or one that has less control and has a greater risk firing a bullet that hits an unintended target?
And didn’t owners have to go through a background check to acquire the pistol in the first place?
Too vague, too arbitrary. There is no brace in production or owned that doesn’t make a pistol a SBR. Get out your wallets boys atf needs more funds to fight crime.
But what does the AFT say?
I believe that is a pistol caliber carbine… Let’s ask ATF Agent Beazit.
Cheekwelding a naked buffer tube on an AR pistol is not so bad. Got a problem with braces? I ain’t got one.