Republicans are railing against a ban that the Biden administration has put in place on pistol braces, threatening to bring forward a resolution that would overturn that ban.
Yet, on Monday, the White House reiterated its support for that ban, and said President Joe Biden would likely veto any resolution that would overturn the ban.
The ATF – or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that operates under the Department of Justice – issued a new rule in January that relates to Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached “Stabilizing Braces.”
Conservatives have spoken out against the rule since it was first announced a few months ago by Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general. That’s because the rule reclassifies any pistol that has a stabilizing brace as a short-barreled rifle. It would also require people who have pistols with those braces to register them with the government.
The deadline for registering those pistols was actually May 31.
Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday in support of the resolution that would overturn the ATF rule, Republican Representative Barry Moore of Alabama said:
“On May 31 at midnight, 29 million Americans became instant felons thanks to Biden’s weaponization of the ATF.”
The rule hasn’t been brought to the House floor for a full vote yet, and there’s some controversy about why that’s the case. The sponsor of the resolution, Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, said that leadership in the House GOP said he needed to support advancing the debt limit deal, otherwise his resolution might not make it for a vote.
Steve Scalise, the majority leader in the House, denied those claims, though, and said GOP leadership was working on getting the resolution brought to the floor for a full vote.
Even if it does make it there – and advances out of the House – Biden said that he would instantly veto it if it landed on his desk.”
Biden said:
“Even though Congressional Republicans should take additional action to keep these and other dangerous weapons off our streets, they are instead pushing a resolution to reverse this rule and the progress we have made to reinforce existing statutory requirements on these dangerous weapons.”
Back in March, the Judiciary Committee in the House was prepared to mark up a resolution that would nullify the ATF rule. However, a mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, happened, and the resolution was shelved as a result.
The White House issued a statement this week that referred to a 1934 act by Congress to restrict these types of rifles. It read:
“The rationale is clear: short-barreled rifles are more concealable than long guns, yet more dangerous and accurate at a distance than traditional pistols. Recently, however, the gun industry has circumvented this long-standing law by manufacturing and selling so-called ‘stabilizing braces’ that convert heavy pistols into short-barreled rifles.”
These brace devices were used by the shooters in the mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado, and Dayton, Ohio.
