I hear the ratchet click in my head as the screws get tighter.
Got this email from ATF just today
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Rodan
Member
Those numbers are not made up.
The ATF estimates between 3 and 7 million braces in circulation... a study by the Congressional Research Service put the number between 10 and 40. IIRC, it was SB Tactical that put out the 20 million number.
ATF Suggests Reclassifying Pistols With Stabilizing Braces | An Official Journal Of The NRA
Braces are unregulated, so absent a seizure of manufacturer records, the ATF really has no idea.
Even the lowest estimations are enough to establish 'common use'.
Telecaster
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I've never heard of FRTs. Who actually has those?
And, no government agency is scared of attorneys. They have good ones, themselves.
And, no government agency is scared of attorneys. They have good ones, themselves.
Yes, that WAS pretty stupid of me! Thanks! I had to laugh at myself for that one.
sipowicz
Member
I feel safer already. Thank God they are focusing on this and not on no bail releases for violent gun toting felons.
OP
I’m also skeptical of some of the numbers. An “estimated 3,000,000 pistol braces made since 2013”. That’s an average of 375,000 sold each year from 2013-2021. Possible. However, it was an ATF estimate published in their NPRM intended to support their proposed rule.
I’m not going to argue with them and I certainly did not in my public comment about the scope of the NFA of 1934 written to not apply to weapons in “common use”.
I suspect who ever wrote it was trying to drum up public fear about the millions of them out there just waiting to jump out and harm innocent children.
The 20,000,000 number suggested by SB tactical is 2.5 million per year and that’s extremely doubtful. It doesn’t make the common use argument any stronger, and it just plays into the ATF fear mongering to the uneducated anti-gun public.
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I’ll stick with the ATF’s 3,000,000 estimate as they won’t argue with that. Even if it’s low, it’s enough for a common use argument.
The $200 tax stamp fee hasn’t changed since 1934 and $200 in 1934 was equivalent to $4234 in 2022 dollars. It was clearly intended to create an excessive financial burden on legal possession of NFA items.
I’m just glad the ATF hasn’t taken the step of just adjusting the tax stamp fee for inflation. Not many people would bother submitting Form 1s and Form 4s to register SBRs and suppressors if it cost $4200 just for the stamp.
I don’t know that they have all that many great attorneys, but they do have unlimited resources.
I can tell you from first hand experience as a fed that federal agencies will be wrong, will know they are wrong and yet will still pursue prosecution and/or regulatory actions against citizens and small businesses because they know they have the funds to spend the defendants into the ground and force them to accept a plea deal or settlement. From that warped fed agency perspective it’s better to unjustly prosecute someone than it is for an agency to admit that it or one of its agents was wrong. They feel that makes them look weak and undermines their credibility.
They will also go to great lengths to protect the assets of their agents to shield them from civil suits in unjust actions in the few cases where the defendant hangs on long enough to win a case.
It’s despicable behavior.
Well apparently there are some agencies afraid of attorneys. Didn't a certain organization file so many lawsuits against the IRS that in a deal they were given tax exempt status if the lawsuits went away. Power in numbers and money if you can stay the course. If a tenth of the 20 million or so pistol brace owners filed lawsuits (2 million) and pursued them against the ATF, I bet pistol braces would cease to be any issue. Most of us have a life and are not fanatically driven to fight this type of battle. However I COULD see it happening if any type of serious gun confiscation scheme ever occurred.
Shocker's link led me to quite a few videos on FRT and binary triggers, and FRT and full auto. Made me think that they can be fussy and somewhat unreliable, and I think Whisper Tactical's vids on them made the most sense. We don't train on automatic double-tap, or "alternative" trigger pulls, and they can be a problem, especially if depended upon in a stressful situation. Just my .02 cents.
Otherwise, banning FRT's? It is a pull-reset trigger, so this is getting too deep into the fringe of defining "full auto".
Otherwise, banning FRT's? It is a pull-reset trigger, so this is getting too deep into the fringe of defining "full auto".
Received from BATF today, and to me is pretty clear. "If multiple shots will fire from 1 pull of the trigger is is not legal and considered a machinegun. I don't mess with these and can see no reason for anyone to have a legitimate reason for one.
If 10% of holders filed lawsuits, it would be 300,000, not 2,000,000.
Unlike an individual group, company, entity, individual person fighting to get the government to simply grant them the privilege of being left alone, the lawsuits of hundreds of individuals isn't a threat. A court will eventually set precedent, , other courts will either follow that precedent or refuse to hear the case, and if things are troublesome enough, the Supreme Court will take it to settle all the lawsuits with one swing of the gavel. 300,000 suits over the same issue will boil down to one, anyway.
The other threat is that Boob McBooberson will launch a poorly done lawsuit, with little resource, and use that as a leading case to be the one that sets the example. That is why there is so much caution about people just filing lawsuits on these issues. They might be doing more harm than good.
Remember, Miller is he most important case in the history of the Second Amendment. And the government won at the Supreme Court, after he never showed up! The fact that one criminal refused to fight his court case has hurt every gun owner in the US forever. We don't need another Miller to be the lead on any more gun cases.
Defending someone from a criminal or civil charge with lawyering up heavily, over and over again, is nothing to do with the situation of these rights and how they are defined.
