My lovely bride and I wish you all the best of all possible holiday seasons.

We want to remind you of an opportunity to give a gift to a great many brother and sister gun owners.

The gun prohibitionists are hot to ban “stabilizing braces” for carbine-like pistols such as short barreled AR15 actions.  They have found an ally in the President-elect, and such legislation is coming fast.

The relevant Federal regulatory agency on firearms is of course the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).  That agency is seeking your input on the issue.  Your input in such matters has proven beneficial and persuasive in the past.

You can send your message through here.

My own feeling is that since BATFE originally approved the braces as legal, and a great many gun owners bought them in good faith on the strength of that approval, it just isn’t right to ban them at this point, nor to require them to be registered as NFA weapons, nor to impose a $200 tax on each such item, as is being proposed.

BATFE has listened to gun owners on similar matters in the past. Hopefully, your logical and calmly phrased letters will find receptive and understanding ears this time around. A very well-reasoned discussion can be found at one of the best gun owners’ forums anywhere, pistol-forum.com, here.

A thoughtful critique of the proposed changes in the law can be found here.

If you’re gonna respond, hurry please. Only a few days remain. Comments will be closed on January 4, 2021.

DISREGARD.

Update here, with commentary from Dave Workman at Second Amendment Foundation. https://www.libertyparkpress.com/atf-backs-off-on-braces-yes-america-there-is-a-santa-claus/ .

8 COMMENTS

  1. I see that the Fed’s are up to their old tricks again. Whenever a Federal Agency wants to push through some regulations, without receiving a lot of “push-back” from the public, they make sure to schedule the comment period to coincide with the end-of-calendar-year holiday season.

    For example, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has been working on an update to the National Bridge Inspection Standards for more than a decade. The last update occurred back in December 2004. However, the State DOT’s, which have the heavy burden of implementing these regulations, have steadily pushed back against the FHWA making major changes. Also, the Trump Administration has had a general anti-regulatory stance.

    Anyway, the FHWA finally managed to draft a proposed update about a year ago. However, they were afraid that all 50 States (and the various territories and Indian Tribes) would all push back against them by submitting a ton of negative comments. So what did the FHWA do? Why they scheduled the comment period to coincide with last year’s holiday season! The comment period started just before Thanksgiving of 2019 and it ended on January 13th of 2020. So, most of the comment period was consumed with the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Holidays.

    The Fed’s know that many businesses and State Agencies are closed during these holiday periods. People get tied up with the holidays and are not paying attention to Federal tricks. All of which means less time for comments and push-back against the proposed Federal Regulations.

    So we see that the BATFE is also using this same playbook with the proposed regulations concerning “stabilizing braces” . They want to ram these regulations through in order to please the new incoming Harris/Biden Administration. So, to short-circuit as much of the push-back comments as possible, they have (A) scheduled an ultra-short comment period and then (B) scheduled it to fall right across the Christmas and New Year’s Holidays.

    Clearly, the BATFE is “Chomping at the Bit” to approve these new regulations. They might as well send out a “Memo” saying so considering the ridiculous length and timing of their comment period.

    I agree with Mas. The Pro-Gun Firearm’s Community ought to foil this regulatory trick by flooding the BATFE with negative comments on these useless regulations. I, for one, am “sick to death” with these Federal Bureaucrats constantly scheming to deceive and trick the American People in their blind efforts to magnify their own political power.

    • Some governments are reaching new lows in hiding behind the term “human error,” especially regarding agent “garbage in, garbage out” software systems clearly programmed to facilitate rigged elections. Anything that government officials or their agents do wrong these days seems to be automatically exempt from being described or investigated as “illegal” or “invalid.” The term “deficent” is likely still applicable, though, at least under the Code of Federal Regulations, as far as one understands legal precedents. We might consider establishing a “We The People” kneejerk lawsuit factory to protect every citizen from any and all new bureaucratic regulations, rejecting out of hand every new rule that can be described by anyone as deficient in any way under law, which would undoubtedly find few exceptions.

  2. Thanks for the alert. Yes, in watching the banking industry for many years I’ve noticed that “comment periods” usually coincide with holidays near the end of the year.

    While I don’t own one of these braces, I can certainly see the stupidity of the BATFE changing their approval. The trouble is that we have to have approval for anything that isn’t fully automatic – meaningless attachments and modifications shouldn’t be part of the BATFE watch anyhow.

  3. We need to permanently remove the F from BATFE. Let’s just keep those people busy breaking up moonshine stills in the woods and inspecting cigarette stamps. Also make them pay for their donuts. No more free treats for the BATE agents.

  4. Of note, the Federal Reserve was created on a small island off shore 107 years ago yesterday in the dead of night. Time of year and place chosen…just pure chance.

      • 90,000 comments divided by (1 minute average per comment in reading/evaluation/surveillance-tagging x 60 minutes per hour x 7 hours of reading per day) or 90,000/420=214.29 BATF staffer “work days”, or 42.86 “work weeks,” to soak up just that little batch. Nothing like a little make-work project, just make sure it eventually ends. But when? By vacation? Reminds one of the legendary “decision problem,” as in “Will that #$%&! computer never shut off? It’s almost daylight already!”

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