Conservative and gun-rights groups challenged new federal regulations on guns with stabilizing braces in court Tuesday, suing to block a gun-control action touted by President Joe Biden after the accessories were used in two mass shootings.
Two lawsuits were filed in federal court in Texas against the move to treat the guns like short-barreled rifles, a weapon like a sawed-off shotgun that has been heavily regulated since the 1930s.
The cases argue that millions of people have guns with the braces and use them to make firing “more accurate, and therefore safer,” according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of three veterans by the conservative Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
They said in the lawsuit that the new rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives forces owners into “unthinkable choices” of removing the brace, submitting to a national registry or opening themselves up to possible charges.
“The new rule unlawfully usurps Congressional authority by significantly expanding the definition of ‘rifle’ under federal law and, with it, imposes potential criminal liability on millions of Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights,” the lawsuit argues. A decade ago, the ATF found that the braces did not make guns similar to short-barreled rifles.
