REGULATE AR PISTOL BRACES

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About AR Pistol Arm Braces

AR Pistol Braces, also known as stabilizing braces, can turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle—but there’s a loophole in our laws that doesn’t regulate them like short-barreled rifles.

The AR Pistol Brace attachment pictured here allows a shooter to fire an easily concealable pistol with rifle-like accuracy and firepower. While ballistic vests worn by police protect against handgun ammunition, rifle ammunition used by converted AR pistols can penetrate standard police vests.

This type of stabilizing device was used in March 2021 when a gunman killed 10 people in Boulder, Colorado, and in August 2019 when a shooter killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio.
We need your help convincing ATF to regulate these AR pistol arm braces and prevent further tragedy.

Sample COmment

ATF counts every comment submitted and takes them into account. The comment period ends on September 8th at 11:59 pm ET. Copy the sample comment below, click the “submit a comment” button which directs to federalregister.gov, and paste your comment into the official form.

I support the Biden administration’s rule on “stabilizing braces” or “arm braces” and I urge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to finalize the rule as proposed so that firearms with attached “arm braces” designed to be fired from the shoulder are properly regulated as short-barreled rifles.

Short-barreled rifles are unusually dangerous because they can be easily concealed like a handgun, but have the firepower and accuracy of a rifle. Until recently, they have rarely been used in crime because of a federal law that requires them to be registered with ATF. However, the gun industry has now designed certain accessories to convert AR-15 or AK-47 style pistols into short-barreled rifles, and members of the public are using these accessories to get around the law.

We have already begun to see the horrific consequences when people create unregistered short-barreled rifles using AR-15-style pistols and arm braces. On August 4, 2019, a mass shooter killed nine people and injured 17 in Dayton, Ohio, using this kind of weapon, and on March 22, 2021, a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, using another one. The easy availability of these weapons poses a serious public safety threat.

The NRA claims that these accessories are arm braces meant to help people with disabilities shoot accurately, but some of these “arm braces” create short-barreled rifles. ATF’s proposed rule would identify objective design features that indicate when a firearm with an attached arm brace should be classified as a short-barreled rifle. This rule would keep these weapons out of the wrong hands without preventing access to arm braces by people who need assistance because of a disability.

The proposed ATF rule is a step forward in addressing an increasingly important public safety problem. I wholly support this rule and urge its immediate adoption.

REGULATE AR PISTOL BRACES

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