Who cares what they delivered before. It's about not wasting resources manufacturing something that may be deemed an illegal SBR and then they need to rectify that situation for any new pistols they manufacture. It's like saying that something may be defective so let's keep making it until some regulatory agency tells its defective and then we need to go fix it.
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Quite a bit I bet. People buying HB pistols after being told by the MFG they were pistols who then have to SBR them or do something else to keep from being felons are t going to sue the ATF. They will go after Q for knowingly selling them something questionable.
You have to remember. We live in a society that requires warning labels on air for the most part.
Q is doing the smart thing. AFAIK they have offered to help out customers that chose to go the SBR route. It’s not financially viable for them to keep selling stuff they will have to rework, pay fees for or abandon customers should the ATF go bonkers and change their minds again. Just not smart business.
Suppose Q builds a whole bunch of Honey Badger 'Pistols' over the next 60-days, but the ATF decides they are SBRs. Now Q must submit Form 2s on all the guns, before they can be sold or transferred.
Imagine if you had a Honey Badger pistol incoming to a standard 01 FFL...but before you pick it up the ATF re-classifies it. Now it needs to be transferred via a Class 3 SOT and worse your gun is stuck in limbo, because it's at the 01, but the ATF says it needs a Form 2. Without a quick resolution you could end out 3000 bucks because your FFL is forced to turn over an illegal SBR to the ATF for destruction...ASSuming you even live in a state where the Form 2 SBR can actually be transferred to you.
A lot of things to go wrong here. Personally, if I were running Q, I would continue to hound the ATF and DOJ for resolution, but also choose a similar option to suspend production until clarification is reached.
I agree with @HCM, election results will ultimately decide this matter.
What isn't clear to me is what happens to Q in the event ATF determines their brace isn't actually a brace? Surely there are penalties for selling a pile of unregistered SBR's? Does Q loose their license? Are they subject to criminal prosecution? Fines? All of the above?
I used to work in a regulatory area for a large company (totally unrelated to firearms). But, even though the company tried to follow regulations (i.e., was a "good player"), when a regulatory agency changed its position (and I'm not talking about a higher-level statutory change), how that agency then tried to apply its new interpretation was always a coin toss. Sometimes, there might be a solid reason, e.g., "new, good science. Sometimes, political pressure. The point being, all parties, particularly those being regulated, might not agree that such a change is warranted, or even legal, under the applicable statutes.
And that is where the court system comes in. And why some prefer the courts to be very liberal in "interpreting" the statutes, and some prefer the courts to be very conservative.
For instance, the Bill of Rights, those first ten amendments. They all express individual rights. Of course, unless one wants to read the second amendment is applying to a group (the militia), and not to individuals.