Federal judge in Texas blocks Biden ATF pistol brace rule on day of deadline to register weapons

A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked President Biden's new regulations on pistols with stabilizing braces in response to a lawsuit from gun rights activists.

Judge Drew B. Tipton of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) partially preventing the agency from enforcing its new stabilizing-brace rule. The order came on the deadline before the rule goes into effect in response to a lawsuit filed by Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Gun Owners Foundation and the State of Texas.

Tipton's order follows a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a similar case that enjoined ATF from enforcing the rule against plaintiffs including customers of Maxim Defense Industries, a pistol stabilizing-brace manufacturer, and the Firearms Policy Coalition. That decision came days before a deadline for individuals to register their pistol braces with ATF, destroy them or remove the accessories from their weapons. Those who do not comply with the regulation by May 31 will be forced to pay a fee and could face up to 10 years' imprisonment or $10,000 in fines or both, according to ATF.

The critical difference in the two cases is that a non-private entity, the State of Texas, is party to this lawsuit. Former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against ATF earlier this month, arguing the pistol-brace rule will inflict compliance costs on Texas police who own previously legal handguns with stabilizing braces and must now expend resources to register those weapons. Tipton agreed and found that Texas established standing to sue ATF and "has sufficiently shown that it will suffer irreparable harm absent a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of the Final Rule."

The stabilizing brace rule was introduced as part of the comprehensive gun crime strategy Biden announced in April 2021 in response to the massacre at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman used a firearm with a stabilizing brace to kill 10 people. In 2019, another mass murderer used a stabilizing brace in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that killed nine people.... (Read more)

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