The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a resolution to repeal the Biden Administration’s arbitrary ban on the use of handgun stabilizing braces.
In a hard-won but likely pyrrhic victory for 2A advocates on Capitol Hill, H.J. Res. 44 cleared the chamber with bipartisan support by a vote of 219-210, with two Democrats crossing the aisle to join the bulk of Republicans. The Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval aims to strike down the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ controversial pistol brace rule that went into effect earlier this year, in effect declaring handguns equipped with a brace to be an illegal short-barreled rifle.
“A new regulation by President Joe Biden’s ATF on pistol braces has turned millions of combat-wounded veterans and law-abiding citizens into felons overnight,” said U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), a key co-sponsor of the measure. "This travesty illustrates the dangers of an unchecked federal agency that is willing to go around Congress and the millions of constituents we represent."
Hudson made an impassioned plea on the House floor, arguing the regulation is overreaching, then going on to detail the reason behind the first pistol brace concept: so that wounded veterans could participate in the shooting sports with platforms that were often too cumbersome for them to use with disabilities.
But don't get excited just yet, as the road forward for the disapproval resolution is narrow and unlikely to end well.
H.J. Res. 44 would have to go on to be taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate and pass, then be signed by President Biden to overturn the ATF's rule. While the tea leaves of a Senate victory for the resolution point to an unlikely passage in that chamber for the repealer, the White House has left no ambiguity as to its fate should the proposal reach the Oval Office.
"Even though Congressional Republicans should take additional action to keep these and other dangerous weapons off our streets, they are instead pushing a resolution to reverse this rule and the progress we have made to enforce existing statutory requirements on these dangerous weapons," said the White House in a statement issued Monday. "If H.J. Res. 44 were presented to the President, he would veto it."
Biden has made it almost a rule to spill veto ink on Republican-led House resolutions, scuttling H.J. Res. 27, 30, 39, 42, and 45 just since March.
The ATF estimates that a minimum of 3 million braces were in circulation prior to the agency's rulemaking, while the Congressional Research Office places that figure at a much higher 10 to 40 million.
Meanwhile, the 120-day amnesty period to modify, register, hand over, or destroy, braced pistols expired on June 1. No less than four cases are currently underway in assorted federal courts across the country challenging the brace rule as unconstitutional.
Banner image: A Diamondback DB15 large format AR pistol with a Gearhead Worx Tailhook stabilizing brace. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
