Two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans, have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s new rule on pistol “stabilizing braces,” calling it “egregious and overreaching gun control” in a news release from the office of Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.
The 40-page complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, Western Division. Defendants are U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and ATF Director Steve Dettelbach.
“This rule is simply a continuation of President Biden and his ATF puppet Steve Dettelbach’s assault on the gun rights of law-abiding Montanans. Under their gun control regime, millions of Americans owning these simple accessories now have a choice: register them with the ATF with a ridiculous fee or face federal criminal charges,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “This rule is flagrantly unconstitutional. Attaching a common pistol-stabilizing brace does not magically transform a pistol into a federally regulated short-barreled rifle.”
Knudsen said this lawsuit has been in the works for “a couple of weeks.” He said West Virginia carried “a big part of the load,” along with North Dakota.
“I look forward to the federal courts sending this ridiculous piece of ATF overreach garbage exactly where it belongs,” he said, “the dumpster.”
Joining the state legal officers are the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Inc. (FRAC), a non-profit group “working to improve business conditions for the firearms industry,” according to the lawsuit. Also joining the lawsuit are NST Global LLC d/b/a SB Tactical, a company that manufactures stabilizing braces, B&T USA, LLC, a licensed firearms importer and manufacturer, and Richard Cicero, a disabled combat veteran and retired police firearms instructor who has, according to the lawsuit, “trained hundreds of physically challenged students, many of them also wounded combat veterans, to safely fire pistols with the help of stabilizing braces.”
In addition to Montana, the participating attorneys general represent Alabama, Alaska Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
“For more than a decade,” the court document says, “the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (‘ATF’) authorized the public to use pistol stabilizing braces, a popular firearms accessory, without federal regulation. During that time, ATF repeatedly issued letter rulings assuring manufacturers and the public that attaching a stabilizing brace would not alter the statutory or regulatory classification of a pistol or other firearm.
“As a result,” the document continues, “millions of Americans have for years lawfully purchased stabilizing braces and pistols equipped with stabilizing braces from authorized, legitimate manufacturers with ATF’s full knowledge and express approval.
“Then everything changed,” the lawsuit alleges. “Frustrated with congressional inaction, the President of the United States ordered ATF to abandon a decade of practice under an established statutory framework and ‘to treat pistols modified with stabilizing braces’ as ‘subject to the National Firearms Act.’”
A few lines later, the lawsuit declares, “The Rule thus represents an abrupt reversal of ATF’s longstanding position that these items are not subject to NFA controls or heightened Gun Control Act, or ‘GCA’ regulations. 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 attorneys general and their co-plaintiffs are asking for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief.
The lawsuit estimates that millions of Americans have purchased the braces “to achieve safer and more accurate firing.” The estimate is between 10 and 40 million already in private hands. It also says state law enforcement officers have firearms in their vehicles that can, or are, equipped with these accessory devices.
The lawsuit notes people who possess brace-equipped firearms have until May 31 to either register their guns per the NFA, destroy it, permanently modify it or surrender it to the ATF.
