Comment on FR Doc # 2026-08930

I am posting this comment in favor of the proposed change in regulations on firearms with attached stabilizing braces. Courts have found that ATF's revisions in the 2023 final rule on the same topic violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Several courts, including one in Texas have enjoined, stayed, or vacated the final rule, which has rarely been in effect. The court also found these ATF 2023 revisions as arbitrary and capricious, with several commenting the 2023 rules were difficult to understand. ATF is therefore proposing to remove from the regulatory definitions of “rifle” the two paragraphs added by the 2023 final rule that defined the term “designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder.” U.S. citizens purchased these braces with the full knowledge and a clear policy letter from the ATF stating these braces were legal, and the associated SBR rules would not apply. The net effect of ATF's revisions in the 2023 final rule would have been to create legal jeopardy to law-abiding citizens who purchased these braces in good faith. The ATF stated in a letter to Sargeant Joe Bradley of the Greenwood Police Department in Greenwood Colorado on March 14, 2014 that, quote "For the following reasons, we have determined that firing a pistol from the shoulder would NOT cause the pistol to be reclassified as an SBR:" The letter then goes into detail as to the reasoning for ATF's determinations. There are numerous other fatal flaws in the ATF 2023 final rule on the same topic, which are beyond the scope of this proposed rule change, and the associated comment period. In summary, as stated earlier, I support this change to ATF regulations.