What is really at work here is the old boiling-the-frog tactic. They are attacking weapons accessories rather than weapons to avoid legal challenges and to get gun owners used to the ATF regulating those items. I think there is a more nefarious strategy at work here beyond desensitizing gun owners to ATF bullying. The ATF has suddenly become aggressive about redefining weapons. In the bump stock case, they claimed that it made a semi-automatic rifle into an automatic one. With the pistol brace rule, they are blithely declaring that a pistol may if you turn down the lights and look at it just right, be a rifle. What both rules are calculated to do, in my opinion, is to encourage people to ignore them and then hammer gun owners with federal felony convictions. //

Paxton is headed to court in a friendly federal district and will probably prevail. If the ATF defends this rule, it is headed to the Supreme Court, along with the bump stock case, where the Second Amendment is in favor and “Chevron deference,” the legal doctrine that says courts should defer to executive agency interpretations of the law, is not. //

libertylioness
2 hours ago edited
All my handguns now identify as cordless hole punchers. //

jumper
3 hours ago
"What is really at work here is the old boiling-the-frog tactic."

100% correct here. The ATF keeps chipping away, going after things they know the FUDDs don't care about. Bump stocks and pistol braces aren't mainstream accessories so they know this will largely be ignored and, unfortunately, agreed with in the usual "I'm pro-2A but..." crowd.