Rep. Andrew Clyde: AR-Pistols Registered with ATF Will Be Illegal in 5 States

When Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) spoke with Breitbart News this week, he pointed out that AR-pistols registered with the ATF via the stabilizer brace rule will be illegal in five states.

The ATF’s stabilizer brace rule recategorizes AR-pistols with stabilizer braces, defining them as short-barrel rifles instead.

Clyde is sounding the alarm that this recategorization means people in certain states will literally be prohibited from keeping their gun once they register it with the ATF.

He said, “I know some states ban short-barrel rifles, so if ATF is allowed to rewrite definitions and make an AR-pistol with a stabilizing brace into a short-barrel rifle, then there will be states where you will be completely prohibited.”

In other words, ATF has the owners of an AR-pistol with a stabilizer brace in a Catch 22: If they do not register the firearms with the brace, they run the risk of being a felon on the ATF’s terms, but if they register it, and live in California, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, or New York, the AR-pistol with a stabilizing brace will be illegal because the registration recategorizes it as a short-barrel rifle.

The same is also true in Washington, DC.

Clyde reiterated that people in the five states listed above, and DC, will find their “AR-pistol with a stabilizing brace will now be illegal.”

He lamented what this means for disabled veterans, the heroes for whom stabilizing braces were created in the first place.

Clyde said, “Every disabled veteran in those states will now be denied this support, denied this stabilizing brace, and that is the epitome of cruelty to those veterans.”

On May 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported Clyde warning that “the ATF has gone rogue” and called on Republican Reps. to join with him in supporting H.J. Res. 44 to block the stabilizer brace rule.