This shooter demonstrates the proper handling of an AR-15-style pistol with an attached arm brace(image courtesy of Free Range American magazine).
WASHINGTON, DC – It’s a sign that Republicans have re-taken the US House when one of them introduces legislation to abolish a federal agency and has any realistic hope of making it stick.
The target of the proposal from US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is not the vulnerable Department of Education, but instead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (commonly known as the ATF).
“My bill would abolish the ATF,” Gaetz said, acknowledging that his proposal has little chance of passage in the Democrat-controlled Senate and in the face of a potential presidential veto.
But Gaetz has a follow-on strategy.
“If that doesn’t work, we’re going to try defunding the ATF,” he explained, relying on the US House’s so-called “power of the purse.”
“If that doesn’t work, we’re going to target the individual bureaucrats at the top of the ATF who have exceeded their authority in rulemaking.
“And, if that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a meat cleaver to the statutes that the ATF believes broadly authorize their actions.”
Now in his fourth term in Congress, Gaetz was well-known as a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, where his efforts focus on national security, veterans’ affairs and defense of constitutional principles.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal agency that regulates the use and trafficking of firearms; the illegal use and storage of explosives; acts of Arson, bombings and terrorism; and the illegal distribution of alcohol and tobacco products.
Gaetz and other conservative Republicans are incensed by a recent 293-page ruling issued by the ATF that many AR-15 style pistols with stability braces are now considered short-barreled rifles.
That ruling makes those weapons subject to federal registration and taxes; that change would also make millions of law-abiding Americans retroactively become guilty of a felony under federal law.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has defended the ATF ruling, saying that it will help keep the public safe.
But that ruling is based on “little but politics,” according to Mountain Green resident and author Larry Correa, whose recent monograph In Defense of the Second Amendment will be released by Regnery Publishing on Jan. 24.
“If a gun is common and useful,” Correa said, citing recent Supreme Court rulings, “then it’s protected (under the 2nd Amendment). We’re talking about millions of these (pistols) that meet that definition of ‘common’.”
Moreover, Gaetz argued, the ATF ruling punishes disabled gun owners and veterans would need the stability braces when target-shooting.
“I think (ATF Officials) are under the flawed conception that a stabilizing brace increases the lethality or danger of a pistol,” Gaetz remarked, condemning the proposed ruling as “virtue signaling to the anti-gun left” with no practical safety value.
ATF officials have themselves conceded that the new ruling is overwhelmingly unpopular. During its deliberation proceedings, the federal agency received 20,000 comments in favor of regulating pistols with stability braces, versus more than 200,000 in opposition to the proposal.
Despite that, the ATF ruling would have the affect of law 120 days after notice of it is published in the Federal Register.
“The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on the actions they’re taking to convert otherwise law-abiding people into felons,” Gaetz said.
“Frankly, I think that all ATF officials should have to justify their existence.”
