More than 40 GOP senators and House members are backing a Congressional Review Act resolution condemning the Biden administration’s new rules on pistol stabilizing braces, which are set to take effect at the end of May and risk turning millions of legal gun owners into criminals, at least on paper, if they don’t register their brace-equipped pistols as “short barreled rifles” under the National Firearms Act.
The CRA resolution and accompanying legislation to prevent federal funds from being used to enforce the rule is spearheaded by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS). Support for the resolution hasn’t crossed party lines, at least not yet, but it is bringing together the disparate wings of the Senate GOP, from Mitt Romney to Rand Paul.
“Millions of law-abiding Americans use pistol braces, and many of those Americans rely on braces because they are disabled. If Congress doesn’t correct the ATF’s misguided rule, countless law-abiding gunowners in Louisiana and other states will become criminals in the blink of an eye. The Biden administration’s assault on the Second Amendment isn’t going to stop unless we defend this fundamental liberty,” said Kennedy.
“The Biden administration’s war on every American’s fundamental right to bear arms is relentless and an offense to our founders. Congress must use every tool at its disposal to stop the Biden ATF from enacting this unconstitutional gun grab and creating its newly proposed anti-2nd Amendment gun registry. The Congressional Review Act is one of those important tools and I’m pleased to co-lead this effort with Senator Kennedy,” said Marshall.
“The Biden Administration’s recent stabilizing brace rule is blatant overreach of ATF’s rulemaking authority—adding burdensome regulations on law-abiding gun owners without actually doing anything to make our communities safer. The Administration should focus on cracking down on violent crime, not punishing law-abiding Americans,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Dan Sullivan (R-Ohio), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also cosponsored the legislation.
The other senators who have signed on as co-sponsors are Sens. John Thune (R-SD), John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Rick Scott (R-FL), Jim Risch (R-ID), James Lankford (R-OK), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Steve Daines (R-MT), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Jerry Moran (R-KS).
Over on the House side, Rep. Andrew Clyde and Rep. Richard Hudson are leading the effort to undo the rule through congressional oversight and authority, and with Republicans in control they’re probably going to be more successful than their Senate counterparts. In order to get a bare majority in the Senate the GOP would have to not only be completely unified, but would need to bring at least three Democrats on board as well. Maybe Joe Manchin would join his Republican colleagues in opposing the stabilizing brace rule, and the nominally independent Angus King of Maine is another slim possibility, but beyond those two I can’t see any Democrat who would even want to buck Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden in order to protect the Second Amendment rights of responsible gun owners.
Still, as I said on today’s Bearing Arms Cam & Co, I’m very glad to see that the brace rule and ATF overreach is ongoing litigationgetting the attention of Republicans in Congress, and I hope that many of these same senators and representatives will support the against the rule that was filed earlier this year, including the suit brought by a coalition of 25 Republican attorneys general. With a divided Congress, the chance of a CRA being approved is pretty slim, but thankfully that’s not the only option available to remove the rule and the threat that it poses to legal gun owners before the rule takes effect at the end of May.