Why is ATF Still Leaving Its Options Open for Prosecuting Owners of Braced Pistols?

The saga of ATF’s enforcement of the National Firearm Act’s “short barreled rifle” provisions against braced pistols has been a roller coaster ride of shifting interpretations. NRA-ILA has been keeping up with, reporting on, and advocating for reform the entire time. It seemed we had reached a low point with the publication of the rule Factoring Criteria for Firearms With Attached “Stabilizing Braces” during the Biden-Harris administration. Yet NRA, along with other pro-Second Amendment groups, successfully challenged that rule in court, and its enforcement was enjoined against NRA members, as well as other plaintiff groups in similar suits. Eventually, the rule was vacated in its entirety. Unfortunately, that did not provide the lasting relief many had hoped.

Last year, we reported on ATF audaciously claiming, in the waning days of the Biden-Harris administration, that all braced pistols were subject to the NFA. It then quickly walked backed that position as “overbroad.”

But then NRA exposed the ongoing prosecution of Taylor Taranto for possession of an unregistered SBR, based on allegations concerning a CZ Scorpion EVO 3 S1 pistol with an attached SB Tactical stabilizing brace. Taranto moved to have the charge dismissed. In its opposition to the motion, filed during the Biden-Harris administration, the government claimed:

Although the rule is stayed (and, now, vacated), ATF is not barred from continuing to enforce the underlying statute as it always has: by making case-by-case determinations about whether particular braced firearms constitute “rifles” under the statute. And of course, because the rule reflects ATF’s best understanding of the statute, those determinations will naturally tend to look substantially like the determinations that would follow from applying the clear framework outline in the rule.

We reported on that case in February of 2025, and the SBR charged against Taranto was dismissed, “in the interest of justice,” under the Trump administration that April. The dismissal of Taranto’s NFA charge followed an April 7, 2025, announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice and ATF of a “comprehensive review of [the] stabilizing brace regulations.” This was supposed to include “consultations with stakeholders, including gun rights organizations, industry leaders and legal experts,” with the goal of ensuring the resulting policies are “constitutional and protective of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

In the meantime, though, ATF continued to resist attempts by litigants in cases remaining against the rule to obtain final judgments on the rule’s illegality, claiming the issue was rendered moot by the final judgement in the case vacating the rule. This, the agency claimed, rendered the rule “formally nullified and revoked[.]”

A March 16 government filing in the ongoing case of Texas v. ATF has now renewed concerns that the agency reserves the right to continue bringing felony prosecutions under the NFA for possession of unregistered braced pistols. The passage in question is meant to rebut the plaintiffs’ claims that there are still live issues in the case that deserve a final judgment on the merits, rather than dismissal on mootness.

In response to one such argument, the government wrote:

Plaintiffs also make much of the fact that defendants [i.e., the ATF] continue to enforce the NFA’s and the GCA’s regulation of short barreled rifles against some brace-equipped pistols, even though the Rule has been universally vacated. But that should come as no surprise, as that is consistent with how [ATF] have always explained how things work if a court vacated the Rule or enjoined its enforcement. … At any rate, that [ATF] continue to enforce certain statutory requirements and prohibitions that they have been delegated the authority and responsibility to administer is irrelevant to whether plaintiffs’ APA challenge to the now defunct rule is moot.

The upshot of this passage is that ATF continues to assert its right to bring felony charges related to the unregistered possession of an SBR in cases solely based on braced-equipped pistols. Worse, the public has no way of knowing which braced pistols ATF believes trigger the underlying statutes. Worse still, one of the citations the government uses in making this point in its brief makes clear that ATF considers this to be the case even with respect to plaintiffs groups, like NRA members, who have obtained injunctions specifically prohibiting enforcement of the ATF’s prior rule against them.

Does this mean a broad crackdown against those in possession of braced pistols is imminent?

It’s impossible to say with certainty, but there are reasons to believe this is not the case. For one, ATF remains under the authority of the U.S. Department of Justice and, ultimately, the White House. Both have given repeated assurances of the intention to revisit the Biden-Harris administration’s aggressive enforcement policies concerning braced pistols. And, as evidenced by the dismissal of the SBR count in the Taranto case, and DOJ’s decision last year to drop its appeal of the decision vacating the Biden-era rule, this has been followed up by concrete action.

It is also standard practice among career lawyers in the U.S. government to make arguments that maintain maximum prerogatives for government decision-making. While senior DOJ and ATF officials are signatories on the brief, it appears it was actually drafted by three DOJ career attorneys who operate under the premise that the government, as their client, should make the minimum concessions necessary to resolve any case challenging its powers.

These career lawyers may only be vaguely aware of the larger political issues surrounding their agencies and may indeed be consciously trying to ignore them. In a bureaucracy as sprawling as the U.S. government, functionaries must, by necessity, have some leeway in discharging their duties without senior micromanagement.

Of course, there is also the more cynical take that career officials may be all too aware of the political priorities of ATF and DOJ senior leadership and may be actively trying to undermine and embarrass their bosses who operate at the political levels. If this view were correct, it would not be the first time Deep State operatives publicly bucked the Trump administration’s pro-Second Amendment inclinations, as in the case of Mel Gibson’s restoration of Second Amendment rights.

Whatever the case may be, the uproar the issue is generating among supporters of the Second Amendment is certain to come to the attention of senior ATF and DOJ leadership, and perhaps the White House itself.

Swift repudiation of the position taken in the brief and elaboration of official ATF and DOJ policy concerning the legality of braced pistols would certainly go a long way to calming jangled nerves among gun-owning Americans right now.