217 House Republicans vote to roll back gun safety rules

On a 219-210 vote on Tuesday to roll back a federal rule aimed at curbing gun violence, 217 Republicans and two Democrats supported H.J. Res. 44, Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde’s resolution to repeal the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives rule relating to ”Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces.”’ Two Republicans and 208 Democrats voted no.

Since the start of 2023, the United States has seen at least 291 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and saw at least 646 in 2022. In recent years, several such shootings have involved firearms with stabilizing braces.

In January, Attorney General Merrick Garland signed a final rule clarifying ATF regulations to make clear that a firearm with a stabilizing brace counts as a rifle if it is designed to be fired from the shoulder. Under the National Firearms Act, passed by Congress in 1934, rifles must be registered with the federal government and are subject to a $200 transfer tax when bought or sold.

The move received praise from gun violence prevention groups. “We applaud the Biden-Harris Administration for properly classifying highly lethal weapons according to the law, which is the very definition of a common-sense gun regulation,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a press statement at the time.

The gun lobby immediately objected. “With the finalization of this rule, the Biden Administration is reversing over a decade of agency guidance and rulings that the firearms industry and law-abiding American gun owners have relied on when designing or acquiring firearms,” the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action said. “NRA-ILA is already working on litigation to challenge this arbitrary and capricious attack on law-abiding gun owners by the Biden Administration.”

The far-right Gun Owners of America warned, “If this unconstitutional executive branch action is allowed to stand, it will only be a matter of time until even more hunting firearms, accessories, and traditions are under attack.”

On March 20, Clyde and 181 House Republican colleagues introduced a resolution to overturn the ATF rule. “Unquestionably, this is nothing more than a reckless attempt to advance President Biden’s ultimate goal of an unarmed America,” Clyde baselessly claimed. “As a fierce defender of our Second Amendment freedoms and one of the few Federal Firearms Licensees in Congress, I’m proud to help lead the fight against the ATF’s latest assault on our unalienable right to keep and bear arms.”

A week later, a shooter armed with several weapons shot and killed three elementary school children and three adults at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. According to an Everytown press release, “One of the guns used by the shooter, a Lead Star Arms Grunt AR-15 pistol, was equipped with a stabilizing arm brace — the kind of firearm now regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with its arm brace rule that was finalized in January.”

Last week, a group of 11 House Republicans blocked floor action on a series of four GOP bills, citing their displeasure with their leadership’s handling of the recent debt ceiling agreement. Some of those dissidents claimed that House Republican leaders had attempted to pressure Clyde to go along with that deal by suggesting he must do so if he wanted a floor vote on his pistol brace legislation.

On Tuesday, House Republicans agreed to bring up those bills, along with Clyde’s resolution.

The legislation now moves on to the Senate. Should a majority of senators back it, the White House says President Joe Biden will veto it:

Even though Congressional Republicans should take additional action to keep these and other dangerous weapons off our streets, they are instead pushing a resolution to reverse this rule and the progress we have made to enforce existing statutory requirements on these dangerous weapons.

This Administration has no higher priority than keeping the American people safe, which is jeopardized with a vote in support of a resolution that makes it easier for mass shooters to obtain these deadly weapons.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.