Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Relating to ``Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached `Stabilizing Braces'

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution.

Our Nation's veterans have served our Nation honorably. They and their families have sacrificed for our freedoms. Today, they are calling on us to support their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and to ensure that they can protect themselves and their families. Will you answer the call?

Mr. Speaker, everyone in this Chamber, both Republicans and Democrats, say that we support our Nation's veterans. Now is the chance to prove it.

Today, we can block an overreaching regulation by ATF on pistol braces. We can defend the rights of our veterans. We can defend the rights of all law-abiding gun owners.

A new regulation by President Biden's ATF on pistol braces has turned millions of combat-wounded veterans and law-abiding citizens into felons overnight. Before my colleagues cast a vote today, I want you to know the story of how the pistol brace was developed.

Several years ago, a combat-wounded veteran went to a local gun range with his buddy. However, he was asked to leave due to his lack of control over the pistol because of his combat wounds.

After leaving the range, his buddy went home and created the first pistol brace concept so that his friend and other combat-wounded veterans could exercise their constitutional right to protect themselves, their families, and their homes and could participate in shooting sports again, even on pistol platforms that were otherwise too cumbersome for a disabled shooter to use.

Two years ago, I held a press conference outside of this U.S. Capitol with a group of combat-wounded veterans from around the country, including Army veteran Rick Cicero. They came to share how devastating a new regulation from President Joe Biden's ATF would be on veterans.

Cicero lost his right leg and right arm due to an IED explosion while serving our country in Afghanistan. As a son of a firearms instructor and longtime shooter, he didn't want to give up his Second Amendment rights.

In Rick's own words that day: ``The most important thing to me about this brace [is it] is another avenue of getting injured veterans out of the house. . . . And it helps to maintain a bit of confidence that you are still able to do something.''

Veterans like Rick Cicero served our country and put their bodies literally on the line for us and for our families. Starting this month, the ATF has taken away their God-given rights protected by our Constitution. It is outrageous.

Since the creation of the brace, the ATF has repeatedly approved stabilizing brace designs. As recently as July 2018, the ATF said a brace used ``to assist shooters in stabilizing a handgun while shooting with a single hand . . . is not considered a shoulder stock and therefore may be attached to a handgun without making an NFA firearm.''

As a result of those former decisions, tens of millions of Americans already legally owned pistols with stabilizing braces.

Yet, the ATF's new rule requires owners of the device to either remove or destroy them or register the braced firearms with the ATF as short-barreled rifles.

For those combat-wounded veterans in New York and Connecticut, which don't allow short-barreled rifles, you have no option. You can't register that brace.

This registration process involves submitting fingerprints and identifying information as well as photographs of the owner and the firearm. Additionally, the registration will require a $200 tax stamp.

The 120-day grace period is well short of previous grace periods where a gun was reclassified under the NFA. In fact, back in 1994, the last time a weapon was reclassified, they had over 6 years to reregister that weapon.

This has led to less compliance and leads me to speculate whether the ATF instituted a short timeline by design. Either way, these regulations are especially difficult for servicemembers deployed overseas, like so many in my district. If they are overseas when the deadline hit the end of last month, they are unable to register their firearms. They are now felons. Think about that. They are serving us overseas, and we have now labeled them a felon.

This travesty illustrates the dangers of an unchecked Federal agency that is willing to go around Congress and the millions of constituents we represent.

Our constituents are fed up. They are sick and tired of unelected bureaucrats making up new laws and calling them regulations. I say enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde), for partnering with me on this important resolution, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source