OP
OP
FlSwampRat
Member
After searching the abbreviations sticky (not listed) and Googling LOP I still have no idea exactly what you meant. Length of Pistol?
Brace or stock?
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Carl N. Brown
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^ LOP = Length of Pull distance from trigger to back of the stock or brace.
Under the original discussions of what became the NFA, the point of restricting short barrel rifle and short barrel shotgun was to prevent people who could not buy a handgun (concealable weapon) under state or local law from getting around the llaw by sawing off a rifle or shotgun.
Since a pistol with a brace is sold as a handgun subject to state and federal handgun regulations, it is not an attempt to circumvent concealable weapons laws.
The definitions written to enforce the 1934 MFA don't necessarily represent the intent of the laws in the first place. .
Under the original discussions of what became the NFA, the point of restricting short barrel rifle and short barrel shotgun was to prevent people who could not buy a handgun (concealable weapon) under state or local law from getting around the llaw by sawing off a rifle or shotgun.
Since a pistol with a brace is sold as a handgun subject to state and federal handgun regulations, it is not an attempt to circumvent concealable weapons laws.
The definitions written to enforce the 1934 MFA don't necessarily represent the intent of the laws in the first place. .
Charlie Horse
Member
"Wring your hands and shy away from your liberties, if you must. It's your choice. But know that it has long passed the point of reasonable caution and is now nothing but acquiescence to submission."
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone pole vault to a conclusion like that in a LONG time. If you will reread what I wrote, it was a statement of what I see as the next target. There was no hand wringing or acquiescence. Yes, all of these things are workarounds because the RKBA was attacked most notably in 1934, 68 and 86. In a panic, someone thought that the best solution to criminal misuse of guns was to abridge the rights of Americans who have committed no crime. The problem with workarounds is that they work until those who were outsmarted figure it out. Its like an arms race. They say you can't have A, no problem, lets come up with A1. They say you can't have A1, so we build A2. Since we're talking about a government bureaucracy here, they can do this forever, since they have the resources to do it. The solution is the remove the prohibitions on A, but that won't happen as long as
1. The public is ignorant of the concept of freedom
2. The public is ignorant of the technology
3. The government has a vested interest in the banning of the items in question.
Anyone who DIDN'T see the the government eventually going after bump stocks was simply not paying attention and doesn't know history. When you expand this and look at braces, the situation is eerily similar, and it doesn't take Carnac the Magnificent to see where this will lead. That doesn't mean I like it or agree with it, but to deny it is foolishness.
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone pole vault to a conclusion like that in a LONG time. If you will reread what I wrote, it was a statement of what I see as the next target. There was no hand wringing or acquiescence. Yes, all of these things are workarounds because the RKBA was attacked most notably in 1934, 68 and 86. In a panic, someone thought that the best solution to criminal misuse of guns was to abridge the rights of Americans who have committed no crime. The problem with workarounds is that they work until those who were outsmarted figure it out. Its like an arms race. They say you can't have A, no problem, lets come up with A1. They say you can't have A1, so we build A2. Since we're talking about a government bureaucracy here, they can do this forever, since they have the resources to do it. The solution is the remove the prohibitions on A, but that won't happen as long as
1. The public is ignorant of the concept of freedom
2. The public is ignorant of the technology
3. The government has a vested interest in the banning of the items in question.
Anyone who DIDN'T see the the government eventually going after bump stocks was simply not paying attention and doesn't know history. When you expand this and look at braces, the situation is eerily similar, and it doesn't take Carnac the Magnificent to see where this will lead. That doesn't mean I like it or agree with it, but to deny it is foolishness.
AlexanderA
Member
LOP = Length of Pull. The distance from the trigger to the end of the stock. The magic number for pistol braces appears to be not more than 13.5".
AlexanderA
Member
No, but it is an attempt to circumvent the SBR restrictions under the NFA.
Exactly. The law, once in place, takes on a life of its own.
One might say that since there is no Hughes Amendment in regard to SBR's, the "safety valve" of registration and payment of the tax is still available. There is no reason for the "workarounds" of AR "pistols" and "braces" when one can have a real, legal SBR. Except for one thing -- the months-long wait for bureaucratic approval. The strategy, then, is to have a "pistol" with a "brace" while the SBR application is pending. But that's just temporary.
"Arm braces" and "AR pistols" are just legal fictions. Everybody knows what is really going on here.
AlexanderA
Member
The NFA and its penumbra of regulations and rulings have become ridiculous. In a rational world, all sides would sit down, take a hard look at it, decide where we want to go with such restricted weapons, and then come up with a simple, workable plan. (An outright ban is clearly off the table, as not being workable.) But this evidently isn't a rational world.
Handguns were originally going to be included in the NFA. Since they didn't want people to convert rifles and shotguns into pistols to circumvent paying the tax the SBR and SBS definitions were added. Handguns were removed from the NFA before passage but not the regulations about SBS and SBR.
To be clear, I'm not specifically targeting the quotes I used, but used them as an example of the overall tone I've seen on several gunsites. Too many people say "I'm gonna use arm braces because they can take them away from us". Taken as a whole, it smacks of hand wringing and giving in before the battle was even engaged. That's what happened to bump stocks. People gave them up long before the government sought to take them away.
What will it be? Rolling over now, or standing firm and taking our rights and liberties back?
...and? You say that like pulling the teeth on an unconstitutional law is a Bad Thing
There are plenty of reasons to have arm braces, some practical, some personal. Even if you're right and there is no reason to have an arm brace, so what? Can't someone have an arm brace simply because they want to? Or because it pokes someone in the proverbial eye who thinks we shouldn't have arm braces?
Of course they are. Legal fictions invented by tyrants with which to put people in jail for not following to the letter. What if there were no need to define "longarms", "handguns", "rifles" or "shotguns" just to stay in the good graces of the law? Can you imagine the variety of firearms that would be available to us? Can you imagine the explosion in innovation of small arms we'd see if the need for these legal fictions were to be dropped right now?
The more people buy arm braces and other such "work-arounds" the more popular they become and the sooner they become impractical, even impossible to ban.
Let's say they do ban arm braces. All they can do is redefine them as "buttstocks". So what? If that ever happens, it's easy to remove the arm brace or to make sure that barrel lengths and over all length requirements are met to remain in compliance of the law.
The BATF saying they couldn't be shoulder fired IMHO was in response to the media flaunting the work around.
Shotgun News ran several articles about it, as did other magazines.
Got a good thing going? Rub it in another's face.............with that other being the Gov.
Expect pushback.
I thought the gun press hyping the work around to be absolute idiots.
Shotgun News ran several articles about it, as did other magazines.
Got a good thing going? Rub it in another's face.............with that other being the Gov.
Expect pushback.
I thought the gun press hyping the work around to be absolute idiots.
Charlie Horse
Member
And that is the crux of the problem, isn't it? We have a government that is so unresponsive and insulated from the people, that we have managed to get into a real mess. Couple that with dividing people along cultural line for the sake of identity politics, this leads to a bad outcome. The further we go down this road, the more likely we are for bad things to happen. You know, something like "You're not part of an approved gripe group, so your opinion doesn't matter." Add this with a government that has been allowed to run off the rails for the last 160 years or so, we're headed for trouble. When people are made to feel hopeless, they start to get desperate, and I can see violence coming from it, and we don't need that.
dogtown tom
Member
Do you believe in "the gun show loophole"?
If you do, you got it wrong. Laws restrict, not enable. While you think it circumvents the law, I see it as not restricted under the law. The anti gun crowd sees the absence of a requirement that transfers/sales/trades/gifts between nonlicensee as a loophole, not as a freedom that has exited for over two hundred years.
"Circumvent", "loophole" and "workaround" are a damn shameful way of describing freedom. Not to mention being 100% legal firearms under Federal law. They imply that it's somehow unethical, a gray area, a slippery slope and possibly illegal but just not quite illegal enough. That anyone would use such terms is sad.
While I agree that an SBR is better in all aspects, an SBR isn't necessarily legal to possess in all fifty states. Couple that with actually registering your SBR with the government (unlike Title 1 guns) and it's a fantastic workaround, circumvention and loophole.
Horsehockey.
No more a "legal fiction" than a rifle with a 16.25" barrel...…..in your view such a barrel is a legal fiction since everybody knows that less than a 16" bbl on a rifle is an SBR. Would a rifle that folds to less than 26"OAL also be a workaround, circumvention or a loophole?
Arm braces and AR pistols are just legal.....PERIOD. That you believe them to be legal "fictions" shows an ignorance of not only Federal law and ATF regulations but IMHO an horrible grasp of our Second Amendment rights.
dogtown tom
Member
Simply having a disability does not exempt one from Federal gun laws.
The American with Disabilities Act often gets mentioned when people discuss arm braces......yet the ADA has NOTHING to do with firearms.
The ATF most certainly could have said no. IMO they erred. First time I saw the Sig "arm brace" I said "that's a crappy shoulder stock". I know the thing was "invented" by a disabled vet, but I really doubt that arm brace was the intended usage.
That.
OARNGESI
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I own 6 pistols with braces the sba3 is my favorite in 9mm 300blk 223 and 762. I built all for between 300-400 each. Now the braces pretty much come free with the kits I’d like a sbr but paying 200 plus engraving the wait time and all the extra regulation I’ll keep my braces as long as there legal.
AlexanderA
Member
The "gun press" are not impartial journalists. Their mission, first and foremost, is to sell product. (When was the last time you read an unfavorable review of a product in a gun magazine?) That product included accessories such as bump stocks and arm braces.
buck460XVR
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Seriously.....is a stock not a brace, or vice versa? Does anyone here really think that folks aren't using a "brace" to get around the SBR thing? Is this really any different than bump stocks? That said, I don't have a problem with either "Braces" or "Bump" stocks or with folks who are not prohibited legally owning them. I also don't have an issue with SBRs and don't think they need to be regulated any differently than regular rifles. It's some of the arguments for and false claims over the original intent that I have an issue with. Back in the early 70s I had a Crosman Air pistol. Bought a shoulder stock for it(yes they called it a shoulder stock, not a brace). It greatly improved my accuracy with the gun on barn pigeons and other small varmints around the farm, while keeping the platform small and compact. Had a warden friend once tell me it was illegal, but he wouldn't push it since it was just a .177 air pistol.
The reason "Braces" and "Bump" stocks are easy targets for regulation is because so few folks use them and the majority of folks know their real intent is to circumvent current, vague regulations.
The reason "Braces" and "Bump" stocks are easy targets for regulation is because so few folks use them and the majority of folks know their real intent is to circumvent current, vague regulations.
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I agree with you and we can and should stand firm without resorting to violence. Americans can do this by banding together and get involved at the voting booth, campaigning, donating time & money and running for office ourselves. We need to clean up the mess at the NRA, not abandon it. We don't need to win every race, but we do need to be a big enough influence the politicians cannot afford to ignore or simply placate us.
...and arm braces have nothing to do with the ADA.
How does a bureaucracy err by coming down on the side of liberty?
The "false claim" in this case is the claim the brace was invented to "get around" the SBR law. If the brace is a "work around" of the law, it's a consequence of the arm brace, not the original intention.
The brace was not invented by a disabled vet. It was invented by someone who wanted to help disabled vets. I believe the inventor was involved therapy for disabled vets before inventing the original arm brace. The inventor also got the ATF involved during the early stages of development to ensure the brace was in full compliance of the law. The inventor wanted something to make shooting for vets with disabilities because shooting was found to be therapeutic for many vets with war wounds.
If only a few folks are using arm braces, why has the market exploded with so many versions of the brace and why are so many firearms offered with braces from the factory? Why are braces selling as fast as they can be made?
If any of you can't stand this particular breath of freedom we currently enjoy, so be it. You are free to not exercise this freedom. But, as my niece says "Don't yuck my yum." You can give up your freedoms, but I won't let you give up mine.
Carl N. Brown
Member
Yes, pistols were intended to be included in the NFA and concealable not-pistol firearms especially sawed-offs were placed under the NFA too. But. After pistols were removed from the NFA and left to state law, the AOW, SBS and SBR restrictions were kept under NFA with the intent of augmenting the various state implementations of the model Uniform Pistol Act (drafted by the United States Revolver Association 1919-1922, refined in 1926 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws)* intended to keep handguns from undesirables (like criminals and poll watchers for the party in opposition to the dominant machine (Tim Sullivan's Act).
Would a rifle that folds to less than 26"OAL also be a workaround, circumvention or a loophole?
No, no, and no. (I presume that is a rhetorical question.)
My M1 Carbine in an M1A1 stock folds to less than 26".
My M70AB2 rifle folds to less than 26".
ATF measures rifle length on folding stock guns with the stock unfolded.
________________________
* Franklin E Zimring, "Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968: I. Origins and Antecedents", Journal of Legal Studies, 4 (1975): 133.
Would a rifle that folds to less than 26"OAL also be a workaround, circumvention or a loophole?
No, no, and no. (I presume that is a rhetorical question.)
My M1 Carbine in an M1A1 stock folds to less than 26".
My M70AB2 rifle folds to less than 26".
ATF measures rifle length on folding stock guns with the stock unfolded.
________________________
* Franklin E Zimring, "Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968: I. Origins and Antecedents", Journal of Legal Studies, 4 (1975): 133.
buck460XVR
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You need to go back and reread the statement of mine that you quoted. Slowly this time. No where did I state that arm braces were invented to get around the SBR regs. I also did not challenge the original intent, only some of the claims of the original intent. Again, I don't have a problem with you or anyone having an arm brace or a bump stock. But don't make believe that the majority of those sold are for disabled vets and that the majority of folks are not using them as a substitute for a shoulder stock. I would be interested to know what percentage of these braces are actually bought and used by disabled vets as opposed to vet's or non-vets without any form of disability. This is where I'm coming from.
I have yet to see any place selling arm braces claiming they are all outta stock. Most I see are on sale or discounted. Speaks highly for the amount of demand vs availability. While there may well be a plenitude of "arm braces" available, those platforms they are available for and the percentage of handgun owners that actually have them, is still very small, overall, among handgun owners. I'm not saying this couldn't change. Just as with hi-capacity magazines 50 years ago. 50 years ago the idea, even among gun owners, that civilians had a legitimate use for any mag with a capacity over 10 rounds, was not held in high regard. This has since changed.
Take a deep breath and step down from your soapbox. No one here, certainly not me has said anything about taking them or any other gun right away, from you or anyone else. I also don't have any desire to yuck your niece's yum and basically have no idea what her yum is. Maybe you could enlighten me. I have constantly stated in this thread that I am all for folks using and owning arm braces, if otherwise not prohibited. My problem is folks claiming they are not a replacement for a shoulder stock, or that many folks are not trying to circumvent the SBR regs set about in the GCA of 1934, with their use.
Carl N. Brown
Member
A pistol with an arm brace is not, like a short barrel rifle, an evasion of concealable weapons/pistol laws because it is regulated as a pistol from the get go. Whether the brace is used as an arm brace or shoulder brace is irrelevant if the original intent of Congress in the 1934 NFA is considered: it is regulated as a concealable pistol.
[If I had one of those ungainly ill balanced AR pistols, I'd probably consider an arm brace as a counterweight to sorta balance it out, like the counterweight/length extensions used on UK-legal 12" barreled 24" overall "pistols".]
[If I had one of those ungainly ill balanced AR pistols, I'd probably consider an arm brace as a counterweight to sorta balance it out, like the counterweight/length extensions used on UK-legal 12" barreled 24" overall "pistols".]
dogtown tom
Member
No kidding. That's why I wrote what I did.
"The side of liberty" isn't Federal law. While we seek the ideals of "shall not be infringed", the reality is the Bill of Rights is what the US Supreme Court says it is. ATF doesn't give a rats hind end about the side of liberty. Federal law does not permit them that luxury. Instead they are required to interpret the intent of existing Federal law and implement administrative regulations and the occasional determination letter when the law or regulations aren't black and white. Those determination letters aren't law, aren't regulations, just some bureaucrats OPINION as to the legality of the item in question. As easily as the item is deemed not to violate Federal law it may also be deemed in violation.
I believe ATF erred by the language they used in the first determination letter on the SIG brace. To me and 99% of gun users its a shoddy shoulder stock masquerading as a supposed device to aid those with gross motor disabilities. I could have understood an ATF determination that said "The arm brace does not make a firearm an NFA firearm when attached and used as designed and intended". Since the request for a determination included pretty comprehensive reasons for the design as well as how the straps/flaps/gizmos would be used it surprised me that ATF's determination didn't require those for the arm brace to be compliant.
This is why the original arm brace determination letter resulted in questions about usage, and a second ATF letter clarifying what the first letter really meant...….and that led to a third letter that many still do not understand.
Attaching ANYTHING to a pistol with the intent to use it as a shoulder stock continues to be an NFA firearm. None of the ATF determination letters changed that.
The ATF determinations do not prohibit attaching an arm brace to a pistol and occasional "shouldering" it. But attach an arm brace to use as a shoulder stock on a pistol? Better have a tax stamp. Same as if you attach a plastic 2liter bottle to the end of your barrel.
It certainly isn't because the buyers have a disability involving arm strength.
Absolutely true.
buck460XVR
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Lotta this depends on one's subjective opinion and experience. Like with other rights, I respect the right of others to disagree with me. Certainly ain't the first time, won't be the last. IME, the folks I have seen at the range with "arm braces" are shouldering them. When asked, they will excitedly say "it's just like shooting a rifle, but with a much shorter barrel!" The law claims that the addition of any shoulder stock to a pistol with a barrel of less than 16" makes the gun a rifle by definition....IOWs a SBR. The quandary comes when it comes to whether it is or should be considered, a shoulder stock or an arm brace.
I really don't care. Don't have a dog in this fight other than the issue with folks making false claims over why they have them.
dogtown tom
Member
Careful. Attaching a shoulder "_____" to a pistol probably does make it subject to the NFA as a Short Barreled Rifle. I've yet to see a "shoulder brace" marketed as such, since I'm pretty sure that would be seen as a shoulder STOCK by ATF.
The NFA regulated ALL concealable firearms. Before passage "pistols & revolvers" were removed. That's why if you conceal a Mossberg Shockwave (not a shotgun/rifle/handgun)....you create an NFA firearm.
https://www.mossberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Shockwave-Letter-from-ATF-3-2-17.pdf
Remember, there is a Federal definition of "pistol"...…….and depending on where you live or travel a definition under state law. They don't always agree.
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