Barely a quarter of a million of the estimated three million to 50 million pistol braces legally owned by American citizens have been registered with or turned in to the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), according to Erik Longnecker of the agency’s Public Affairs Division.
In response to an inquiry from The Epoch Times, Longnecker was exceedingly vague. All he said was that the amnesty period during which an owner of a braced firearm could register the firearm under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) without paying the $200 fee expired on May 31.
Other than that, he knows nothing:
ATF is unable to estimate the number of possessors of such firearms that used either of these methods to comply with the final rule.
Likewise, we have no data currently available for the number of firearms abandoned to ATF.
When pressed about how the agency was going to enforce the new rule on the millions of law-abiding gun owners who became lawbreakers on June 1, Longnecker demurred: “[ATF is] unable to comment due to ongoing litigation.”
Some of the millions of gun owners who became criminals merely with the passage of time are temporarily protected from the agency. As The New American reported on Monday several courts have placed TROs (temporary restraining orders) on the ATF until underlying pending lawsuits challenging the agency’s legitimacy in making the rule are resolved.
The others have a choice, according to Guns.com:
- Removing the brace;
- Destroying the firearm;
- Surrendering (abandoning) the firearm to the ATF;
- Reconfiguring the pistol “as a Title 1 rifle with a barrel of at least 16 inches long”; or
- Registering the pistol with the ATF under the 1934 NFA.
There is a sixth option, which millions of owners of pistol braces have chosen: ignore the new rule.
The ATF compliance manual notes what option six involves: “Unlawful possession of an unregistered SBR [short barrel rifle] is punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment or $10,000 in fines, or both.”
Millions of gun owners are deciding to let the courts make the new rule unenforceable. Many of them are hopeful that one of the lawsuits, Mock v. Garland, might even question the constitutionality of the 1934 NFA. Still others are waiting for the day when a court declares the ATF itself unconstitutional.
In the meantime, millions are ignoring, and thus nullifying, the new rule.
Related article:
Recent Pistol-brace Rulings Against ATF Apply Only to the Plaintiffs
