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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, which would ignore the considered judgment of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and make stabilizing braces, a favorite tool of mass shooters, widely available without a background check.

Today is one of those clarifying moments when the priorities of the Republican majority are on clear display. Instead of taking up legislation to reduce gun violence in America, we are advancing a bill to ensure that more deadly weapons are in the hands of mass shooters in this country. What a disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, gun violence continues to take the lives of more than 100 Americans every day. It changes how safe we feel in our schools and in our houses of worship. It reduces vibrant cities to somber headlines. It takes our loved ones, old and young, and leaves us with another anniversary of lives cut short and a community forever changed.

Today, rather than stand up against gun violence, the majority plans to pass this bill so that they can yet again stand with the gun industry.

Rather than support the law enforcement officers who are on the front lines of protecting our communities, the majority is attempting to weaken law enforcement by rolling back a rule created by the ATF meant to protect us from dangerous weapons. The ATF is the law enforcement agency tasked with keeping guns out of the wrong hands and keeping our gun laws in line with congressional intent through rulemaking.

In 1934, Congress passed the National Firearms Act, creating additional requirements to own certain especially dangerous firearms, like short-barreled rifles, which were widely used by violent criminals. Congress included short-barreled rifles because they combine the firepower of a rifle with the concealability of a smaller gun.

In recent years, the gun industry discovered a way to circumvent the restrictions of the National Firearms Act by selling stabilizing braces, an accessory that allows a pistol to be fired from the shoulder, turning it into a deadly yet concealable short-barreled rifle.

In 2020, under the Trump administration, the ATF concluded that stabilizing braces were being widely used to create short-barreled rifles and published guidance regarding their use. House Republicans cried foul. Just 4 days after the guidance was published, 90 House Republicans sent a letter to the ATF and the DOJ expressing their opposition, and just a few days later, the guidance was withdrawn.

A few months later, under the Biden administration, the ATF revived its efforts to regulate stabilizing braces and published the final rule in January to ensure that our laws stay in line with the intent of Congress, dating all the way back to 1934, when Congress decided that deadly, concealable short-barreled rifles should be subject to heightened regulation.

Republicans will stop at nothing to block the ATF from taking this simple lifesaving measure, even though they know that blocking this rule could have deadly consequences.

Mass shooters used guns with stabilizing braces to kill 9 people outside a bar in Dayton in 2019; to kill 10 people, including a responding officer, in a grocery store in Boulder in 2021; to kill 5 people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs last year; and just this past March, to kill 6 people, including 3 children, in a school in Nashville, the nineteenth school shooting this year.

The Nashville shooting occurred the day before the Judiciary Committee initially planned to mark up this resolution, so the majority, apparently sensitive to the optics, if not the substance, of marking up this resolution, postponed the markup.

Three weeks later, they decided that enough time had passed since three more families woke up without the child they had taken to school, and they were ready to advance a bill to enable more mass shooters to inflict death and destruction in our communities. I guess they thought that we had forgotten the lives lost in that terrible tragedy. We will never forget them or the countless others who lose their lives to gun violence every day.

Now, today, the majority seeks to pass this bill on the House floor, despite the deadly consequences. How many more lives will be lost because Republicans refuse to acknowledge that these weapons are a favorite of mass shooters for their ability to make a gun both deadly and concealable? How many more people have to die before Republicans will value the lives of our children over the profits of the gun industry?

During the last Congress, Democrats put forth a range of solutions to prevent gun violence, to support law enforcement, and to solve violent crimes, but our colleagues across the aisle continue to push for unfettered access to every firearm and accessory imaginable.

As Republicans continue to seek freedom from gun regulation, we will continue to seek communities free from gun violence.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, we will certainly go home and explain to the people why we support the ATF's absolutely necessary actions to defend the safety of the American people.

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Mr. NADLER. Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member and certainly the distinguished Member who is managing, my friend from Texas.

Let me be very clear. I support a stabilizing brace for disabled Americans and veterans.

Could anybody stand here and disagree with that?

They were wounded in combat, and they are fighters for our freedom. It is my honor to have represented the Houston National Cemetery in Texas over a number of years.

Let me be very clear on what we are debating here today. Might I say that there are veterans in the ATF, men and women who served in the United States military who have come home to serve again. Their desire is not to violate the Second Amendment, neither is their desire to take innocent Americans in.

You can get a brace for those disabled veterans, and it is a legal process. This provision specifically is to deal with when you make it a lethal weapon to be used like an assault weapon to kill people.

I don't know why we can't be clear. Let me tell you why it is very clear. It is because we started out with this bill so many days and weeks ago, but in the midst of it, someone used the exact same brace to go into the Covenant School in Nashville and murder three 9-year-olds and three staff members. That is what the ATF is against. Eight children are dying every day and 40,000 Americans are dying throughout the year through gun violence, not your Second Amendment.

Mr. Speaker, who would even think that you could tamper with the Second Amendment?

It is in the Bill of Rights.

However, we do believe that when you have this weapon being created to be the kind of dangerous and lethal weapon to kill, Americans will stand up and say: It is not about the Second Amendment, it is about saving lives.

In Dayton 2019, 9 killed, 17 injured; Boulder 2021, 10 killed; Colorado Springs 2022, 5 killed and 19 injured; Nashville 2023, 6 killed, and children are amongst them.

This is the procedure that is used, not at a shooting range where our veterans may go, but for criminal acts that kill people.

Mr. Speaker, let's hear from the person who actually designed it. It was the creator of the SB tactical stabilizing brace who acknowledged in a 2017 interview with the editor of The Firearm Blog that many who bought the braces did so to avoid National Firearms Registration. They were going to do bad, not those good veterans.

He also said during our joint hearing last month--in answer to a question where I asked him to discuss the ATF order--that the stabilizing brace was originally designed to allow a disabled veteran to shoot a pistol more accurately and safely.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Under this regulation, they will still be allowed to do so.

Let me be very clear. It is for veterans, and under the regulation of ATF, who is full of combat veterans themselves doing their duty to this Nation, who looked at this and said they cannot stand for more children being murdered by someone taking a brace--not disabled at all--but to make a steady aim to kill and take innocent lives.

I commend the ATF for its fortitude. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the work we need to be doing right now, passing the Kimberly Vaughn Firearm Safe Storage Act, extreme risk protection laws, and an assault weapons ban that more than 200 persons voted against but the right people voted for, this is not an injury to our veterans. It is saving lives.

Who would stand up here against a veteran?

Nobody. However, I am going to stand up here against the killing of children.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in Opposition to H.J. Res. 44, which opposes regulation of stabilizing braces--one of the modifications the shooter used to blast their way into Covenant School in Nashville and murder three nine-year olds and three staff members.

After this shooting occurred, the Judiciary Committee postponed the markup of this resolution of disapproval, which was originally scheduled to take place the day after the shooting.

For some reason, which I do not claim to know, Republicans didn't want to talk about stabilizing braces then. But less than a month after more Americans learned that children would never again come home or go to school, Republicans decided that the time was right to hold a markup of this resolution.

It took just twenty-two days for Republicans to move on from the tragic loss of life--of children--and get back to the business of supporting and protecting the gun lobby.

Now here we are today--while the wounds of that tragic day are still fresh--not to vote on a bill to make sure this deadly modification never ends up in the wrong hands again but to make it easier to purchase and possess them.

Instead of offering legislation to address the problem of gun violence or to tackle public safety issues, Republicans are here today to shake their disapproving fingers at the ATF for doing its job and to uplift the very modification used to slaughter nine people and injure 17 in downtown Dayton, Ohio; to massacre ten people, including a police officer, at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado; to murder five people and injure 19 at a club in Colorado Springs; and as I said--most recently--in Nashville, to kill children and the people who cared for them.

Had the rule on stabilizing braces been in place at the time, these murderers might have been deterred--and lives saved--by the National Firearms Act registration requirements, which include an enhanced background check.

Although my Republican colleagues see fit to abolish or defund ATF or ``zero out their salaries''--when it became obvious that stabilizing braces had become a workaround against the short barreled rifle rules, the subject-matter experts at ATF exercised their statutory authority-- granted by Congress--as a regulatory agency--to implement, clarify, and interpret the terms and requirements within its jurisdiction, including application of the National Firearms Act.

I should point out that it was under the previous administration that ATF first concluded that stabilizing braces were being designed to avoid NFA requirements.

And it was the creator of the SB Tactical stabilizing brace who acknowledged in a 2017 interview with the editor of The Firearm Blog, that many who bought the braces did so to avoid NFA registration. He also said during our joint hearing last month to discuss the ATF--that the stabilizing brace was ``originally designed to allow a disabled veteran'' shoot a pistol more accurately and safely. Under this regulation, they will still be allowed to do so.

I commend the ATF for having the fortitude to press forward despite the unfair attacks and bullying by House Republicans--including their December 2020 letter to then Attorney General Barr and ATF Acting Director Lombardo--to provide guidance to prevent the harm created by certain stabilizing braces that convert firearms into concealable, killing machines.

And let me be clear. We all know that this resolution is not particularly about the ATF, disabled veterans, or even stabilizing braces. This resolution is about allowing more guns on the street and in our communities.

Our divisions could not be clearer--as Republicans continue to put more guns, that are more dangerous, in more hands.

They want unfettered access to more guns--to be used against women; more guns to be used against children in their homes and in their schools; more guns to be used against law enforcement--against people shopping in grocery stores--and against people enjoying a night out with friends.

Democrats, on the other hand, will continue to support the ATF in its efforts to address gun violence and to promote commonsense laws that keep Americans safe--like the Kimberly Vaughan Firearm Safe Storage Act, Extreme Risk Protection laws, and an Assault Weapons ban that more than 200 Republicans voted against and could have yielded a much different result in mass shootings that have become an American way of life.

That is why I urge my colleagues to vote no to this dangerous resolution.

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Mr. NADLER. Titus).

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Mr. NADLER. Tlaib).

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman says that the cause of gun violence in this country is homicidal maniacs. We have 78 times as much gun violence per unit of population than any other country in the world.

Does the gentleman think that we are 78 times as mentally ill and that we have 78 times as many gun maniacs in this country as anywhere else per unit of population?

That is a slander on the American people.

The obvious cause is we have guns run amok.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans have claimed this rule affects forearm braces. It does not. If a disabled veteran needs a forearm brace to shoot a pistol, he or she can still get one without registering it.

The only firearms affected by this rule are those that have a brace that is ``designed, made, and intended to be fired from the shoulder.'' If a veteran or anyone else wants a covered brace, all they have to do is register it. It was even free to do so until June 1. The ATF waived the fee to encourage compliance.

All this rule does is close a loophole so that all short-barreled rifles are subjected to the commonsense requirements of the National Firearms Act: Registration and a background check.

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Mr. NADLER. Lee).

We have heard the majority claim over and over that this rule is going to come as a surprise to the gun industry and to those who have purchased stabilizing braces. This is simply not true.

There are dozens of videos online of people promoting the use of braces to create short-barreled rifles that circumvent the National Firearms Act. One brace promoter even said the resulting short-barreled rifle could easily fit into a briefcase or a backpack.

Let's be clear. The majority is defending the widespread availability without a background check of a brace that allows more rifles to easily fit into a backpack. The majority has seen these promotional videos. We watched them in our hearing and in our markup, yet they continue to seek to invalidate this rule and claim it will come as a surprise.

The fact is that those who profit from the sale of these braces have long known that they were circumventing the law. The ATF wrote to one brace manufacturer multiple times over the last 10 years. In 2018, 5 years ago, the ATF, under President Trump, told the brace manufacturer that it was engaging in false advertising by claiming devices were ATF approved, when in fact the ATF had not even evaluated those devices.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a July 18, 2018, letter from the ATF to SB Tactical, a brace manufacturer, stating that they must cease the false advertisement of products as ATF approved when they had not even been evaluated, much less approved by ATF. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Martinsburg, WV. SB Tactical,

Saint Petersburg, FL.

Dear SB Tactical: This letter is to inform SB Tactical that certain products currently marketed and sold by SB Tactical have not been evaluated nor approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch (FTISB). It has come to the attention of FTISB that all of SB Tactical ``braces'' are being marketed as evaluated and approved by ATF as ``pistol stabilizing braces,'' although, in most cases no evaluations or classification have ever occurred.

FTISB has found the following statement on the boxes of unevaluated SB Tactical models:

ATF Compliant--ATF has reviewed this product and determined that attaching a Pistol Stabilizing Brace to a firearm does not alter the classification of the firearm or subject the firearm to NFA control.

To date, FTISB has evaluated only two SB15 Tactical submissions: the SB15 brace and the MPX PSB brace. FTISB approved both of these models for use as ``stabilizing braces,'' and classified them as not designed or intended to be used as shouldering devices. However, these classifications were based on the samples as submitted. Any change in the submitted design could change FTISB's classification.

Currently, SB Tactical markets more than 20 different designs of ``pistol stabilizing braces.'' While some of these new models are similar to the original evaluated models, several are advertised as being based off shoulder stock designs. FTISB does not approve ``stabilizing braces'' which are similar or based off shoulder stock designs.

These are the submitted SB Tactical braces approved by ATF:

SB15 (Original submission)

MPX PSB

SB Tactical braces not submitted nor approved by ATF:

SBA3, SBPDW, SB-MINI, SBL, SBM4, SOB, SBX-K, SBV, SBM47, SOB47, SBT5, SBT5A.

SBT5KA, SBTEVO, SBT805, SBT, SBTI, VECTOR PSB, UZI PSB, TAC14-SBM4, 590-SBM4, TAC14-SBL, 590-SBL.

SB Tactical must cease false advertisement of products as ATF approved which have not been evaluated nor approved. If SB Tactical would like to get an official determination for these products, they may be submitted to FTISB for evaluation and classification.

In order for FTISB to evaluate these products and make an official determination, please submit the samples to: Chief, FTISB.

In order for FTISB to perform an evaluation, any submission must be on a complete firearm, with the ``stabilizing brace'' installed.

Please contact us if you have any additional questions regarding this matter. Sincerely yours, Michael R. Curtis, Chief, Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the ATF, the agency specifically tasked with regulating dangerous weapons and keeping them out of the wrong hands, underwent a careful review process that began under the Trump administration.

The agency determined that gun owners were exploiting a loophole that allowed stabilizing braces to be used to assemble a short-barreled rifle without being subjected to the existing regulations for such highly dangerous weapons. The ATF then issued a rule, using the standard administrative process, to close this loophole and to protect our communities.

There should be nothing controversial about this rule, but Republicans want to overturn this sensible regulation and put more stabilizing braces on the streets and in the hands of more mass shooters.

I remind Members that mass shooters have already used stabilizing braces to kill 9 people outside a bar in Dayton in 2019; to kill 10 people, including a responding police officer, at a grocery store in Boulder in 2021; to kill 5 people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs last year; and just a few months ago to kill 6 people, including 3 children, at a school in Nashville.

Once again, Republicans are putting the interests of the gun industry over the safety of their communities.

I urge all Members to oppose this dangerous legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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