A Republican lawmaker has said that a Biden administration rule targeting pistol stabilizer braces could trample gun owners’ basic rights under the Second Amendment.
“You’re talking about something that was completely legal. It’s not even a firearm, it’s a piece of furniture for the firearm and you’re now trying to go ahead and criminalize people for this. This is a very slippery slope and a Second Amendment violation,” Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) told The Post Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the White House submitted a regulation that would effectively regulate pistol stabilizer braces as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act.
Pistol stabilizer braces can extend the length of a pistol and feature a strap to improve the weapon’s accuracy. The House passed legislation Tuesday to roll back that rule, though Biden has threatened to veto it.
Under the pistol stabilizer brace rule, those accessories would be subject to stringent registration requirements, higher taxes, and extended wait periods. It specifically applies to “stabilizing braces to convert pistols into rifles with a barrel of less than 16 inches.”
Top of mind for Mills, an Army veteran, is the ramification for the policy on disabled former service members who rely on the braces to overcome obstacles to using firearms.
Mills recalled how the braces helped give fellow Floridian Rick Cicero purpose again. Cicero lost his right arm and leg in Afghanistan and uses the brace to help him at the gun range.
“One of the things that he talked about was how this pistol stabilizing brace really helped him find purpose. We have to acknowledge the fact that one of the leading contributors to suicide rates in our military veterans is the fact that they no longer feel they have purpose,” Mills said.
The rollback of the rule emerged as a flashpoint in a dispute between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and almost a dozen caucus members that ground Congress to a halt last week.
Eleven House Republicans orchestrated a blockade stymying legislation backed by McCarthy, including ones aimed at curtailing Biden administration regulations relating to gas stoves. Holdouts cited misgivings over the debt limit deal and Rep. Andrew Clyde’s (R-Ga.) accusations that he was threatened a vote against the debt ceiling agreement could derail consideration of his pistol stabilizing brace bill.
Clyde was not one of the holdouts, but some such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) cited it as one of his grievances in the standoff against McCarthy. Ultimately, passage of the pistol brace stabilizer rule came after the lower chamber’s paralysis ended earlier this week.
Pistol stabilizing braces have been used by gunmen in mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado, and Dayton, Ohio. Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to evaluate regulations on the braces during a gun violence prevention event with President Biden back in 2021.
Some proponents of the rule, such as the Biden Justice Department, have contended that braces can effectively be used to “convert pistols into rifles with a barrel of less than 16 inches.”
“That’s absolutely false,” Mills said Wednesday. “Taking a pistol stabilization brace does not make a pistol, a short barrel rifle, nor does it actually improve the magazine or weapons capacity. The only thing that it actually does is it has a piece of plastic that helps with stabilization.”