Numerous Second-Amendment rights organizations filed lawsuits this week against the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) and the Biden administration over their pistol brace rule.
As recently reported by News2A, in January, the ATF released its new rule that arbitrarily reclassifies millions of legally-owned pistols with braces attached as “short-barreled rifles”. As a result, owners must register, modify, or destroy their firearms in order to be in lawful compliance.
Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) filed a lawsuit along with the Texas Attorney General in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, (Texas v. BATFE).
Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, made the following statement in a press release:
“Millions of Americans are facing a very tight deadline to destroy or register their lawfully owned property under this draconian new rule. We hope the court will hear the pleas of gun owners across the country who will be irrevocably harmed by this rule, and GOA stands ready to fight it at every turn.”
The National Rifle Association (NRA) also filed suit against the Biden ATF with a coalition of private plaintiffs, Second-Amendment rights groups and 25 separate State Attorneys General. That lawsuit, FRAC v. BATFE, was filed in Federal District Court of North Dakota.
“The bureau is declaring that they will effectively decide on a case-by-case basis whether a firearm is subject to the NFA. Every American gun owner is in danger of potentially facing felony charges at the whim of these bureaucrats and without any new statute in place,” said Jason Ouimet, executive director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, in a press release.
Both lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of the ATF’s law-making ability, as well the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The nation-wide barrage of lawsuits on Second Amendment issues are a direct result of both liberal states and the federal government defying the 2022 Bruen decision which upheld the rights of private citizens to publicly carry firearms for self-defense.
