{"id":101093,"date":"2024-04-02T02:44:53","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T07:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=101093"},"modified":"2024-04-02T02:44:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T07:44:53","slug":"101093","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=101093","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruling: Millions of NRA Members Exempt From Pistol Brace Ban<\/a><\/p>\n

The ATF can\u2019t go after NRA members over guns with pistol braces on them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the outcome of\u00a0a preliminary injunction<\/a>\u00a0issued by a federal judge on Friday. US District Judge Sam A. Lindsay sided with the gun-rights group and enjoined the federal agency from enforcing its rule reclassifying pistol-brace-equipped guns as short barrel rifles (SBRs) under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). The decision keeps any NRA member who owns a braced gun from facing six-figure fines or imprisonment if they didn\u2019t register their gun by last year\u2019s deadline\u2013something\u00a0most owners didn\u2019t do<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[C]ompliance with the Final Rule is not discretionary, and the NRA\u2019s members face severe penalties for their failure to comply with the Final Rule,\u201d Judge Lindsay\u00a0wrote in\u00a0NRA v. ATF<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAccordingly, both of the final requirements for injunctive relief are satisfied because the threatened injury to the NRA\u2019s members outweighs the threatened harm to the Defendants, and enforcement of the Final Rule under the circumstances will not disserve the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling is a concrete, if temporary, win for the NRA. While the group has lost millions of members due to an ongoing corruption scandal, and it\u2019s\u00a0unclear exactly how many remain<\/a>, those who\u2019ve stuck with the group will now enjoy protection from the long arm of the ATF. The decision puts NRA members under the\u00a0same legal umbrella<\/a>\u00a0employed for members of the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Gun Owners of America through previous rulings.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The case stems from the ATF\u2019s decision, at the urging of President Joe Biden, to reclassify guns with pistol braces as short barrel rifles subject to NFA regulations. Despite previously finding the devices did not convert pistols into SBRs, the ATF used federal rulemaking to reverse itself in January 2023. The result was an expansive rule that likely\u00a0affects millions of gun owners across America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile firearms equipped with \u2018stabilizing braces\u2019 or other rearward attachments may be submitted to ATF for a new classification determination, a majority of the existing firearms equipped with a \u2018stabilizing brace\u2019 are likely to be classified as \u2018rifles\u2019 because they are configured for shoulder fire based on the factors described in this rule,\u201d the ATF said\u00a0in the rule<\/a>. \u201cBecause many of these firearms generally have a barrel of less than 16 inches, they are likely to be classified as short-barreled rifles subject to regulation and registration under the [National Firearms Act (NFA)] and [Gun Control Act].\u201d<\/p>\n

Gun-rights groups took immediate legal action against the rule and the courts cast a skeptical eye at the ATF\u2019s reversal. By May 2023,\u00a0multiple federal judges had issued preliminary injunctions<\/a>\u00a0against the rule. The rule\u2019s grace period, where the ATF allowed owners of braced guns to register their firearms tax-free without facing criminal charges, came to an end that month as well, but\u00a0only between 0.6 percent and eight percent of owners complied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By August 2023, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel\u00a0found in\u00a0Mock v. Garland<\/em>\u00a0that the rule was \u201cunlawful\u201d<\/a>\u00a0because it exceeded the ATF\u2019s authority and ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The panel then sent the case back down to US District Judge Reed O\u2019Connor for further hearings on the merits of the challenge. In October 2023, he ruled the ATF\u2019s rule violates the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he Court finds that the Government Defendants\u2019 implementation and enforcement of the Final Rule substantially threatens to inflict irreparable constitutional harm upon the [Firearms Policy Coalition] members,\u201d Judge O\u2019Connor, a George W. Bush appointee,\u00a0wrote in\u00a0Mock v. Garland<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAbsent injunctive relief, the Final Rule will impair and threaten to deprive them of their fundamental right to keep and bear commonly used arms as a means of achieving the inherently lawful ends of self-defense. See U.S. CONST. AMEND. II (providing that the \u2018right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s ruling is built on the groundwork laid in\u00a0Mock<\/em>. Judge Lindsay, a Bill Clinton appointee, cited the Fifth Circuit\u2019s determination that the ATF overstepped its authority in his ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the reasoning in Mock, the court similarly determines that the NRA is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the Final Rule violates the APA because it is not a logical outgrowth of the Proposed Rule,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

He also rejected the ATF\u2019s argument that any harm suffered by NRA members, such as named plaintiff Dr. Carl Carlson, was self-inflicted because they chose not to register their guns during the grace period.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]hat Dr. Carlson or other NRA members could have registered their firearms tax free during the grace period to avoid the $200 registration fee is quite beside the point,\u201d Judge Lindsay wrote. \u201cBecause any costs incurred by the NRA\u2019s members will be unrecoverable due to Defendants\u2019 sovereign immunity from money damages, and the likely reality of NRA members facing criminal penalties and fines for noncompliance during the pendency of this lawsuit, the court determines that the irreparable harm requirement for injunctive relief is satisfied here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NRA members had enjoyed some level of protection from the ATF\u2019s rule since US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk\u00a0issued a nationwide injunction<\/a>\u00a0against the rule in November 2023\u2019s\u00a0Britto v. ATF<\/em>\u00a0that covered all pistol brace owners. However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has signaled opposition to nationwide injunctions issued at the district court level. Judge O\u2019Connor and the Fifth Circuit denied previous attempts to offer legal protections for anyone other than named plaintiffs. So, Friday\u2019s injunction could offer a more durable immunity as the case against the ATF rule continues on appeal.<\/p>\n

The NRA celebrated the ruling as a \u201cmajor victory\u201d that it said would protect upwards of 350,000 members in Texas and millions more nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom day one, we vowed to fight back against President Biden and his rogue regulators \u2013 and to defeat this unlawful measure,\u201d NRA President Charles Cotton said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice, which represents the ATF in federal cases, did not respond to a request for comment on the decision. A number of the brace ban challenges pending in the Fifth Circuit, including\u00a0Mock<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Britto<\/em>, were consolidated late last year. Parties in the\u00a0combined case<\/a>\u00a0have submitted their briefs, but the court hasn\u2019t scheduled oral arguments yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruling: Millions of NRA Members Exempt From Pistol Brace Ban The ATF can\u2019t go after NRA members over guns with pistol braces on them. That\u2019s the outcome of\u00a0a preliminary injunction\u00a0issued by a federal judge on Friday. US District Judge Sam A. Lindsay sided with the gun-rights group and enjoined the federal agency from enforcing its … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,23,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-courts","category-gun-schtuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101094,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101093\/revisions\/101094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}