WASHINGTON–U.S Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to oppose Republicans’ efforts to roll back the Biden administration’s rule clarifying federal regulations on firearms equipped with stabilizing braces, which allow the conversion of unwieldy large-format pistols into dangerously portable and accurate short-barreled rifles. AR-platform pistols equipped with stabilizing braces have been used in some of the most deadly mass shootings in recent years, including in Nashville, Colorado Springs, Boulder, and Dayton. Senate Democrats blocked the resolution with a party line vote.
“America is crying out for this Congress to do something about the epidemic of mass shootings. We average more than a mass shooting a day, right now. Kids are living in fear when they walk into school. People don't know where the next shooter is coming from. No place seems safe,” Murphy said. “[This vote] is completely removed from the conversation that families and kids are having all across this country.
Murphy laid out the gun industry’s deceptive marketing tactics: “‘The large format pistol really took off in 2014,’ says one article in the NRA's own magazine Shooting Illustrated. What began as this rubber orthotic device turned into something that looked very different. It looked exactly like a shoulder stock. Manufacturers started designing and marketing stabilizing braces designed for disabled individuals that would enable firing from the shoulder, firing short-barreled rifles essentially from the shoulder and resources popped up all over the internet showing gun enthusiasts how to use these pistol braces, designed for disabled shooters to turn their large format pistols, not very useful, into short-barreled shoulder-fired weapons. Now to be clear, it has always been illegal for a hundred years to modify a large format pistol by adding a stock or a brace for the purpose of firing it from the shoulder without going through that process I mentioned: getting the tax stamp, going through the background check… But manufacturers capitalized on widespread ignorance of the law to expand their stabilizing brace designed for disabled shooters and selling it as something intended to be fired from the shoulder by non-disabled individuals. And their advertising sometimes says that they weren't intending it to be fired that way, but over and over you see marketing suggesting something very different.”
On the ATF rule Republicans want to roll back, Murphy said: “So the ATF steps in with a pretty simple rule that basically says if a brace-equipped pistol looks like a rifle, fires like a rifle, if the people who made it are trying to sell it as a rifle, then it's a rifle. There's no ban on these braces or on weapons equipped with them. Even short-barreled rifles, you just have to abide by the law to acquire one, which means a tax stamp and a background check and registration. All we're doing, all the ATF is doing is essentially reaffirming what has been the law for one hundred years. If you want to [buy a] short-barreled rifle or you want to convert a pistol into a short barreled rifle, you just have to go through that process.”
Murphy concluded: “When Congress passed the National Firearms Act, it chose to regulate these dangerous firearms by taxing them and requiring registration. Courts have agreed: possession of an unregistered short barreled rifle poses a danger to the community. Events have borne this out. Over the last five years unregistered arm brace-equipped guns have been used in high-profile mass shootings in Dayton, in Boulder, in Colorado Springs. Mass shooters like these unregistered arm brace-equipped guns. This is a good rule. It doesn't make any new law. It merely helps to enforce a law that's been on the books for almost a century. The ATF is just doing their jobs.”
A full transcript of his remarks can be found below:
“Mr. President, America is crying out for this Congress to do something about the epidemic of mass shootings. We average more than a mass shooting a day, right now. Kids are living in fear when they walk into school. People don't know where the next shooter is coming from. No place seems safe.
“And so what is Senate Republicans’ answer to this paralyzing fear and anxiety that Americans have about mass shootings? Their answer today is to put a resolution before the floor of the Senate that would make legal a new class of semi-automatic rifles that has been banned for 100 years because they're too dangerous. So the answer to the mass shooting crisis in this country is more assault rifles, more dangerous weapons, taking a class of weapons that has been illegal for a century and putting them on the open market.
“That is outrageous, and it is completely removed from the conversation that families and kids are having all across this country. Instead of taking dangerous assault weapons off the streets, this resolution would put more of them into the commercial marketplace. And I want to talk for a few minutes today about how dangerous this resolution is and to ask my Republican colleagues to vote with us, to vote with us against this resolution so that we can protect our families and our kids from criminal acts and mass shootings.
“So Mr. President, for almost a century, the law has treated different types, certain types of firearms differently than others. Namely, those that Congress saw as more dangerous and more closely associated with violent crime. Short-barreled rifles are in that category. They are more transportable and concealable than long rifles. They have longer range, greater accuracy, and more firepower than pistols. Kind of the perfect recipe for criminals. That's in part why they are more highly regulated than your standard handgun or your standard hunting rifle or even an AR- or AK-style assault rifle.
“To own a short-barreled rifle in this country you have to pay $200 for a tax stamp, you have to undergo a background check, you have to register that firearm with the ATF. You can have one, but you have to go through that process. That system, the courts have agreed is consistent with the Second Amendment, allows for responsible, law-abiding citizens to acquire these dangerous weapons while keeping them out of the hands of criminals or people who want to commit crimes with them.
“Now, what's changed? Well in recent decades, gun manufacturers have responded to the widespread popularity of AR-15 rifles by selling a variant that they call either a ‘large format pistol’ or a ‘heavy pistol.’ It's a shorter version of an assault rifle. It's a shorter barrel that lacks a shoulder stock. These guns theoretically can be fired one-handed but they're not going to want to do that, they're too large and heavy to control effectively so they haven't been very popular in the marketplace.
“So the industry figured out a way to make them more popular. In 2012, the first stabilizing brace was created to help a disabled veteran shoot an AR-platform pistol one-handed. You kind of see a crude version of it here. It was sort of a rubber sling that slipped over the buffer tube at the rear of the weapon, and it's cinched down on the shooter’s forearm with velcro straps. This original design solves a very specific problem for a disabled shooter. But the gun industry saw an opening, and it wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by.
“‘The large-format pistol really took off in 2014,’ says one article in the NRA's own magazine Shooting Illustrated. What began as this rubber orthotic device turned into something that looked very different. It looked exactly like a shoulder stock. Manufacturers started designing and marketing stabilizing braces designed for disabled individuals that would enable firing from the shoulder, firing short-barreled rifles essentially from the shoulder, and resources popped up all over the internet showing gun enthusiasts how to use these pistol braces, designed for disabled shooters to turn their large-format pistols, not very useful, into short-barreled shoulder-fired weapons.
“Outdoor Life said ‘the AR pistol of yesteryear is not the same platform that shooters are enjoying today for one reason: the stabilizing brace.’ Now to be clear, it has always been illegal for a hundred years to modify a large-format pistol by adding a stock or a brace for the purpose of firing it from the shoulder without going through that process I mentioned: getting the tax stamp, going through the background check. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, gun owners who modified their firearms in this way were creating short-barreled rifles. That's not allowed under the law. But manufacturers capitalized on widespread ignorance of the law to expand their stabilizing brace designed for disabled shooters and selling it as something intended to be fired from the shoulder by non-disabled individuals. And their advertising sometimes says that they weren't intending it to be fired that way, but over and over you see marketing suggesting something very different.
“Now the gun lobby is going to tell you that this is a really -- so here's what happened: the ATF stepped in to correct this, right? The ATF stepped in to eliminate this ambiguity and just make it clear that as you have not been able for a hundred years to turn a short-barreled rifle into something you can fire from your -- you can't take a pistol and use one of these braces to fire from your shoulder -- that that needs to be the rule and the regulation going forward.
“So the ATF steps in with a pretty simple rule that basically says if a brace-equipped pistol looks like a rifle, fires like a rifle, if the people who made it are trying to sell it as a rifle, then it's a rifle. There's no ban on these braces or on weapons equipped with them. Even short-barreled rifles, you just have to abide by the law to acquire one, which means a tax stamp and a background check and registration. All we're doing, all the ATF is doing is essentially reaffirming what has been the law for one hundred years. If you want to short-barreled rifle or you want to convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle, you just have to go through that process. Get the tax stamp, go through the background check, register the gun. And at the same time there's nothing in this rule to prevent a disabled veteran who wants to equip a pistol with a true stabilizing brace that is not designed to fire the weapon from the shoulder from doing exactly that. Or to prevent a manufacturer from selling a stabilizing brace designed to satisfy those specific needs of the market.
“But this isn't what the gun industry has been selling. The gun industry hasn't been selling true stabilizing braces to disabled veterans. They've been selling an ability to convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle.
“The opponents of this rule will tell you that it's an unconstitutional gun grab. They're not likely to tell you that it's just law enforcement doing their job and enforcing the law Congress made almost a century ago. The courts have upheld Congress's authority to regulate some firearms more stringently than others because they are especially dangerous or unusual, which is why there's no unrestricted right to own a machine gun or a sawed off shotgun or a short-barreled rifle—no matter how it becomes a short-barreled rifle.
“When Congress passed the National Firearms Act, it chose to regulate these dangerous firearms by taxing them and requiring registration. Courts have agreed: possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle poses a danger to the community. Events have borne this out. Over the last five years unregistered arm brace-equipped guns have been used in high-profile mass shootings in Dayton, in Boulder, in Colorado Springs. Mass shooters like these unregistered arm brace-equipped guns.
“This is a good rule. It doesn't make any new law. It merely helps to enforce a law that's been on the books for almost a century. The ATF is just doing their jobs. To pass this resolution would put onto the conventional commercial marketplace a new class of dangerous concealable assault weapons that for a hundred years we've had consensus in this country need to be regulated in a more comprehensive way.
“The ATF is doing their job, and I'd urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution.”
###
