A federal magistrate issued an emergency stay hours before a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rule mandating registration of legally purchased pistol braces went into effect.

According to reports, the rule imposes federal felony charges on pistol brace owners who refuse to register them.

Judge Drew B. Tipton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction in Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation, and the State of Texas’s lawsuit against the new rule.

The order issued by Tipton is in response to a recent decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a similar case. The ruling of that court prevented the ATF from enforcing the rule against the petitioners, including customers of Maxim Defense Industries, a manufacturer of pistol stabilizing braces, and the Firearms Policy Coalition.

Just days before the deadline for individuals to register their pistol braces with the ATF, dispose of them, or remove them from their firearms, the appeals court issued its ruling. Fox News reported that noncompliance with the rule could result in up to ten years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or a combination of both if it is eventually adopted.

The primary difference between these two cases is the participation of a non-private entity, namely the State of Texas, in the lawsuit. Former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition for a preliminary injunction against the ATF, claiming that the pistol-brace rule would impose compliance costs on Texas law enforcement officers who possessed previously legal handguns with stabilizing braces.

Now, the officers must allocate resources to register these firearms. Tipton agreed with this argument, recognizing that Texas had demonstrated standing to sue the ATF and “sufficiently demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of the Final Rule.”

Fox News noted additionally:

The stabilizing brace rule was adopted as part of the comprehensive gun crime strategy announced by Vice President Biden in April 2021 in response to the mass shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman used a firearm with a stabilizing brace to kill ten people. In 2019, another mass murderer used a stabilizing brace in a gunshot that resulted in nine deaths in Dayton, Ohio.

ATF defines stabilizing braces as an accessory “that provides a surface area that allows the weapon to be fired from the shoulder, so long as other factors that indicate that the firearm is designed, made, and intended to be fired from the shoulder.”

The 13 January ATF rule classifies pistols with stabilizing supports as short-barrelled rifles. Due to their combination of accuracy and concealability, these firearms are subject to more stringent regulations by Congress, as they pose a significant threat when in the wrong hands.

Biden and his administration have accused the gun industry of attempting to circumvent federal regulations by selling stabilizing supports, alleging that they can “essentially convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle.”

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

According to the ATF, there are at least three million firearms equipped with stabilizing braces in circulation within the United States. However, estimates provided by the Congressional Research Service suggest that the current number of stabilizing braces in circulation ranges between 10 million and 40 million. CONTINUE READING…