His ruling is not limited to the plaintiffs but covers all Americans who own these braces. This constitutes an impressive legal victory for the Firearms Policy Coalition and other litigants who sued over the Final Rule.
O’Connor directly confronted the schemes of many anti-gunners in Washington who seek to legislate through bureaucratic fiat instead of through the legislative process — as proscribed by the Constitution.
In particular, the Administrative Procedures Act prohibits federal agencies from enacting or amending laws to suit their own purposes. This bypasses Congressional authority and removes legislation from the voters’ will.
Remember, close to a decade ago, these stabilizer braces were invented to assist disabled veterans in continuing to enjoy the rich tradition of sport shooting.
In all of that time, as O’Connor noted, “the ATF concluded that ‘attaching the brace to a firearm does not alter the classification of the firearm or subject the firearm to NFA (National Firearms Act) control.’”
However, that changed in 2023 when the ATF issued its new Final Rule, reversing its previous position and classifying pistols equipped with stabilizer braces as SBRs.
This brought these lawful weapons under much more stringent federal regulations under the NFA.
O’Connor continued, “When an agency changes course as [the ATF] did here, it must ‘be cognizant that longstanding policies may have endangered serious reliance interests that must be taken into account.’”
Last November, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk issued a preliminary injunction against implementing the ATF’s Final Rule.
He based his decision on 2022’s monumental Supreme Court Bruen decision, declaring that the federal government may not unilaterally enact passing or continuing a gun control regulation solely on the claim that “the regulation promotes an important interest.”
The entire rule is now vacated after O’Connor’s decision that it violated lawful requirements for governmental agencies.
The ATF’s own estimates revealed that officials believe that 99% of all pistols equipped with stabilizer braces would be reclassified as SBRs. Allowed to proceed, this would potentially make criminals out of millions of law-abiding citizens who use this plastic device for target shooting.
O’Connor chastised the ATF for failing to follow proper fundamental procedures with public notice and comment. That was due to the Proposed Rule and Final Rule having significant differences that were not presented to the people for commentary.
And he hardly stopped there. The federal judge determined that the ATF’s Final Rule was “impermissibly vague.”
The agency created a worksheet it claimed would explain to gun owners whether their pistols equipped with braces are legal. But O’Connor noted that it included a subjective test that was far from clear on how officials would determine a weapon’s legality.
Instead, “it is nigh impossible for a regular citizen to determine what constitutes a braced pistol.”
It is highly likely that the Department of Justice will appeal O’Connor’s decision, but for now, it provides relief for the sport shooting public. It is also far from guaranteed that the appeals court will be any more impressed by the ATF’s controversial actions than the district court.
The Supreme Court has prominent gun rights cases on its plate, and decisions may be handed down as soon as this week. For now, it is time to celebrate another victory in the ongoing defense of the Second Amendment against forces which would whittle away at these freedoms until they no longer meaningfully exist.
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