Well.. that just happened. ATF classification ruling that ArmBrace = SBR

[grayfox]

Here's more from that ruling issued earlier today. The emphases are added.

.... Presumptively Protected Conduct section [starting at page 19]:


"The Second Amendment also presumptively protects the FPC members’ proposed course of conduct insofar as it involves “making common, safety-improving modifications to otherwise lawfully bearable arms” for the purpose of enhancing the performance of self-defense. Mock, 75 F.4th at 578, 588 (Willett, J., concurring). The conduct of acquiring, attaching, and maintaining rearward attachments, such as a stabilizing brace, serves to “make the pistol more stable and [thus] the user more accurate.” Id. And as explained earlier, “[a]ccuracy, in turn, promotes safety” in the real-life exercise of armed self-defense. Id. The successful performance of armed self-defense entails not only deterring or neutralizing life-threatening perpetrators, but also preserving innocent life and preventing bodily injury to others as much as possible. Users directly advance these fundamental ends of self-defense when they modify “lawfully bearable pistols” with a “rearward attachment—whether as a brace or a stock.” Id. The increased control and precision to pistol fire materially lowers the probability of potentially lethal misfire and collateral damage, as well as being outmatched by or falling victim to dangerous assailants. Such safety-improving modifications are especially critical for “permit[ting] disabled and weaker persons to fire pistols more easily,” and “more safely and comfortably,” to accomplish a more proficient and exacting self-defense. Id. at 566, 571.


"The history interwoven with the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” U.S. CONST. AMEND. II, indicates that the Second Amendment’s text has long incorporated the right of personal gunsmithing, i.e., the right of private individuals to modify or acquire modifications to lawfully bearable firearms so as to increase their accuracy and safety for a more effective exercise of self-defense. For example, in order “[t]o sustain themselves against a large and well-supplied British military throughout the [Revolutionary] war, the Americans relied on gunsmiths, individuals with knowhow from working on their own arms, and Americans who were willing to learn the art of arms manufacturing.” Joseph G.S. Greenlee, The American Tradition of Self-Made Arms, 54 ST. MARY’S L.J. 35, 51 (Apr. 11, 2022) (emphasis added). Analogous to the role that stabilizing braces play for contemporary pistol owners, Founding Era gunsmithing involved modifying lawfully bearable pistols with extended grips and rearward stocks to facilitate greater stability, control, and accuracy in single-handed self-defense fire. ¹? The Court is persuaded upon this record that the Second Amendment’s text and history “presumptively guarantees” Plaintiffs Mock and Lewis the right to modify lawfully bearable pistol arms with rearward stabilizing braces for the purpose of improving the performance attributes necessary to successful armed self-defense. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2135.


"Consequently, the Court finds that the proposed “conduct” of the FPC members—i.e., possessing and using a stabilizing braced pistol for enhanced self-defense capabilities in the home and in public—is “presumptively protect[ed]” by the Second Amendment from the interference of disagreeing restrictions in the Final Rule. Id. at 2129-2130."