ATF issues cease and desist on Q LLC Honey Badger Pistol

[olstyn]

The statute says what it say. To be a rifle, the firearm needs to be "designed, made, and intended to be fired from the shoulder . . . ." No one who ever set out to design and make a stock made anything that looks like a pistol brace.

No one who set out to design a pistol brace ever created anything that couldn't be considered to be a field-expedient/somewhat sub-par stock, either. Frankly, the whole thing is ridiculous - AR and AK "pistols" fire rifle cartridges from rifle-sized guns which happen to have shorter than average barrels. The idea that these guns are not rifles purely because they sometimes lack a full/proper stock is fairly silly. Even before braces became a big thing, AR and AK "pistols" existed almost purely to blow a raspberry at the NFA, and the ones that didn't exist for that purpose existed to blow a raspberry at handgun-only hunting seasons and handgun/shotgun only zones for deer and other large game.

[ccmdfd]

Even before braces became a big thing, AR and AK "pistols" existed almost purely to blow a raspberry at the NFA, and the ones that didn't exist for that purpose existed to blow a raspberry at handgun-only hunting seasons and handgun/shotgun only zones for deer and other large game.

Interesting.

Was not aware of that.

Thanks

[HCM]

If we really believed that the "braced pistol" was a pistol we wouldn't be talking about it in the Rifles and Carbines section.

[Grey]

The fact that anyone here is actually debating whether or not a pistol is a "run around the ATF" is fucking bonkers to me.

The same people probably write letters to the ATF asking for clarifications.

[BillSWPA]

What is wrong with a workaround?!

During the 1994 ban, we could still buy AR-15 rifles that were just as good as pre-ban AR-15 rifles, but lacked a flash hider and bayonet lug. We could buy AK-47 rifles that had thumbhole stocks. AR rifles have been sold in California with a plastic web connection between the pistol grip and shoulder stock to fit within those laws. These are all workarounds that get people as close as they can to what they want without crossing legal lines.

If it fits the requirements of the statute, it is legal. If the intent of the statute was different, then the drafters should have drafted the language more carefully. If they failed, that is their problem, not ours. IF ATF thinks it fits within the statute when they previously allowed it, then they need to follow the rulemaking process.

[Cory]

Broke into laughter on that one.

I don't have an SBR or AR pistol. But I definitely want an AR pistol eventually.

[TCinVA]

The idea that these guns are not rifles purely because they sometimes lack a full/proper stock is fairly silly.

It's not silly, it's law.

With as many infringements on our 2nd amendment rights as there are, I'm not about to concede ground to the shitbirds at the fucking ATF.

Braces exist in the first place because some clever people figured out they could use the ADA and the language of the NFA to say that:

A. These things are pistols
B. These devices allow people who otherwise couldn't use them to be able to use them
C. You can't discriminate against disabled people in this regard

The BATFE doesn't have the statutory authority to tell handicapped people they can't have aids to help them use those weapons, and they don't get to tell everybody else that they're using the devices meant to accomodate that use incorrectly.

This is about holding government to their own fucking rules. Failing to do that is allowing them to play heads I win, tails you lose.

[olstyn]

The BATFE doesn't have the statutory authority to tell handicapped people they can't have aids to help them use those weapons, and they don't get to tell everybody else that they're using the devices meant to accomodate that use incorrectly.

This is about holding government to their own fucking rules. Failing to do that is allowing them to play heads I win, tails you lose.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I have no objection to holding the government to their own rules.

If you cannot, separately from that, see that AR with a 10-inch barrel and a stock = rifle, but AR with a 10-inch barrel and a "brace" = pistol is a distinction without a difference, then I don't know what to tell you. It's very clearly a poorly defined rule which people have opted to exploit. I have no problem with exploiting it; as you said, if the people who made the rules didn't want them to work that way, they should have defined them better.

However, trying to claim some sort of moral high ground about it is just cognitive dissonance, and expecting that the rules, which have changed many times already, wouldn't get changed again, well, there's a reason I've never even wanted an AR pistol, and the events that started this thread are it.

[rob_s]

What is wrong with a workaround?!

Nothing, I suppose.

But you have to be fucking idiot if you think that’s never going to catch up with you eventually.

So many of these arguments just sound so childish. You have Kevin in every video he’s in saying “but they made a million people into felons overnight” and he sounds like a third grader that got caught shitting in the yard and in the middle of getting spanked screaming “but all the other kids shit in the yard!”

Workaround all you want. It really doesn’t surprise me in today’s society that people are just going to do whatever they want and then cry and reverse-logic their way into some sort of imaginary moral high ground after the fact.

But it shouldn’t surprise you that eventually loopholes often get closed.

[GJM]

Is the loop hole the brace, the short barrel, or both?