The National Rifle Association on Wednesday moved to intervene in a legal challenge to the pistol brace rule being implemented under the Biden administration by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
The Second Amendment rights organization filed a legal brief in a pending case in Texas to shield NRA members from the new policy that seeks to regulate pistols with stabilizing braces, according to a filing first obtained by The Daily Wire. The braces can allow a person to shoot a handgun one-handed more easily. The NRA is seeking a preliminary injunction against the regulation, known as the “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces,’” which went into effect on June 1.
“The NRA has consistently opposed this arbitrary attack on law-abiding gun owners on multiple fronts,” said NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre. “The NRA is a leader in the largest and most aggressive legal challenge to this action, and now aims to intervene in the Texas lawsuit. We are pursuing relief to protect our members – and bring a halt to this attack on their freedom.”
The NRA is intervening in a suit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and others who sued the ATF, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, and ATF Director Steven Dettelbach over the new regulation.
“Because of the Final Rule, the millions of Americans, including NRA members, who own a pistol and a stabilizing brace, regardless of style or caliber or type of brace, must either dispose of, alter, or register their firearms. If they guess wrong, they face the prospect of felony prosecution, 10 years in prison, and large fines,” the NRA said in its complaint.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, the filing marks the latest move by the NRA to challenge the ATF’s pistol brace ruling, which came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s request to regulate the use of pistol braces. Biden said such braces could turn pistols into short-barreled rifles.
The NRA eventually hopes to get a permanent injunction against the rule. The organization previously backed a lawsuit in North Dakota filed in February challenging the ATF’s pistol brace rule.
“President Biden and his rogue regulators are on notice: the NRA will continue to defend its members and their constitutional freedoms – fighting this rule and the anti-Second Amendment agenda in every forum available,” said NRA President Charles Cotton.
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According to the NRA, disabled veterans are among the many individuals who use braces for safety when using a pistol.
“As explained in the NRA’s Complaint in Intervention, many of its members are being irreparably harmed by the Final Rule,” the group said in a press release.
Other gun owners have already been shielded from complying with the ATF’s new rule, with members of the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and Texas state employees previously winning a preemptive injunction against the policy.
“The courts have already recognized other gun-promotion groups should be afforded protection from this rule,” Cotton added. “The NRA now seeks to intervene – to extend the protections to the Association.”