Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the Biden administration from enforcing its ban on pistol braces — a ban the attorney general and his fellow plaintiffs claim violates the Second Amendment.
The Biden administration issued a new regulation on Jan. 31 declaring guns with stabilizing pistol braces “short-barreled rifles,” suddenly subjecting them to the stringent mandates of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Among other things, that federal statute regulates machine guns, silencers, and short-barrel shotguns or rifles, but does not govern pistols.
By statute, a rifle is defined as “a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder” and made to fire “a single projectile” with “each single pull of the trigger.” The NFA doesn’t regulate all rifles, however, but only “short” rifles — those defined as having a total length of 26 inches or less, or a barrel of 16 inches or less.
Neither does the NFA regulate pistols, which are defined separately as firearms designed and intended to fire a bullet “when held in one hand,” and having “a short stock designed to be gripped by one hand.”
Beginning in about 2012, firearms manufacturers began offering stabilizing braces for pistols. In general, the pistol would fit into the stabilizing brace with the brace connected to a shooter’s forearm to provide additional support. Over the next decade, manufacturers expanded the offerings of stabilizing braces and also modified pistol designs to provide for the
