Unaccountable ATF Heads Colluding With Biden Transition Team to Ban Pistol Braces

Acting Director Regina Lombardo and Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson, in a leaked conference call from November 10th, 2020.
ATF Acting Director Regina Lombardo and Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson, in a leaked conference call from November 10th, 2020. Note the total disregard for COVID safety, no social distancing, no masks, a great way to lead by example.

WASHINGTON, DC-(Ammoland.com)- While the court battles over control of the Whitehouse continues, the leadership of the ATF has already started working with the Biden transition to restrict American’s gun rights further.

Behind the Trump Admins’ Back

Biden will not officially become the president-elect until the election results are certified. Although the former Vice President has claimed victory, Trump has pointed to widespread voter fraud.

Rudy Giuliani showed that Will Smith’s long-dead grandfather and deceased boxer Joe Frazier voted in the election.

November 10th, 2020, during an ATF conference call, Acting Director Regina Lombardo told those in attendance that the anti-gun Biden transition team has reached out to the ATF to get the agency’s “top priorities”.

AmmoLand News’ anonymous source said Lombardo told those on the call that her priorities would be pistol braces and 80% lower receivers.

There are currently multiple millions of pistol braces owned by law-abiding American gun-owners.

Pistol Braces

MCX-Virtus004
The MCX pistol with a folding brace is super compact and easy to carry. IMG Jim Grant

The Department of Justice told the ATF’s industry side not to move on pistol braces until the agency could be worked out regulations. SB Tactical and other companies have been working with the federal government to clarify the rules surrounding braces. Currently, the rules are very subjective, which means it depends on the reviewer that gets assigned the review to determine if a brace is legal. There is no set standard.

Instead, the rogue ATF’s law enforcement side sent letters to multiple companies stating that their pistol brace firearms were short-barreled rifles (SBRs). Q LLC, which makes the Honey Badger AR pistol, went public with the cease and desist letter that the ATF sent to the company. Because of pressure from the Trump administration and the general public, the agency walked back their demands and gave Q a 60-day reprieve.

ATF heads have wanted to go after pistol braces for years. AmmoLand News has reported on ATF Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson’s dislike of braces, including ones made by SB Tactical. ATF former Department Assistant Director of Enforcement Programs and Services Curtis Gilbert specifically named the SBA4 in a meeting and accused SB Tactical of making a stock disguised as a pistol brace.

The ATF thought it didn’t have the political capital to move on pistol braces under a Trump administration. Our sources within the ATF believe that recent actions against pistol brace companies and ATF sending signals that they would make braced firearms an NFA item (AOW), was to try to undermine President Trump’s base before an election.

80% Receivers

James Madison Tactical - AR-15 80% Polymer Gen2 Lower Receiver
James Madison Tactical – AR-15 80% Polymer Gen2 Lower Receiver

Misinformed Gun Control groups have longed railed against 80% lower receivers. These receivers let gun owners mill out their own unserialized firearms but Americans have every right to build their own guns from scratch and have done so for 100’s of years. Many Democrats claim that these guns are “ghost guns” only possessed by criminals. The use of firearms made from 80% lower receivers by criminals is exceedingly rare. Nine out of ten firearms used in a crime are stolen.

The ATF has long wanted to ban the sale of 80% lower receivers and kits but lacked the political power to do so. Under Obama, the Department of State banned Defense Distributed from supplying files to print firearms using 3D printers, claiming it was a violation of ITAR. The DOJ under Trump reversed the decision and allowed Defense Distributed to make the files available for download. These gestures signaled to the ATF that they did not have the political capital to move on the 80% lower kits.

Our President Trump still could and should take action against the unaccountable ATF personnel working behind the administration’s back before a 2020 Presidential winner is even declared.

Through an executive order, he created Schedule F. The order allows the President to move government workers into the new category to more easily fire them. Trump could send a message by using Schedule F to remove the rogue ATF leadership.

The ATF and the Biden campaign did not return AmmoLand’s request for comment.


About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

John Crump

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Leo

It’s hilarious how the ATF can conclude that a piece of plastic added to a pistol can become a SBR, but of course we know now that it’s actually not a technical conclusion but a political one from an unelected entity who constantly undermines our rights. All the ATF people needs to be move to the F group and be fired for their constant treat to us, the lawful abiding citizens of our country. Defund the ATF!

Don

Seriously? Braces ARE stocks. No one is being fooled by calling them braces. I’ve never seen a user doing anything but shooting the guns from the shoulder. I have had 8 SBR or SBS guns and paid my taxes. I don’t like it. People with AR pistols need to get used to having a $5 AOW that they ge to register without the $200 making tax. Just wait till Biden reclassifies semi-auto rifles like machine guns. Ban the NFA.

Last edited 3 years ago by Don
Heed the Call-up

The brace, used as intended, then makes it a handgun? Would you agree that same firearm without a brace also makes it a handgun? Do you know the ATF definition of handgun? It is a firearm designed to be shot with one hand. How many people use two-hands when firing handguns? Could you then conclude it wasn’t meant to be fired with one hand? I have fired rifles one-handed, does that mean it was intended to be fired that way? Who gets to decide that?

Gdubb

Yep. This move from ATF is even dumber than when they banned bump stocks. Somehow the stock type of a rifle automatically makes it into a ruthless human killing machine? Laughable stupidity again coming from the libtards on the left.

nod

Runs a little deeper than just paying a tax doesn’t it?

JSNMGC

“People with AR pistols need to get used to having a $5 AOW that they ge to register . . . ”

No, Don, people do not need to get used to this – Barr needed to tell these people to back off. That is what needs to be done.

nrringlee

Nefarious deep state actors, usurpers all conspire against your liberty every hour of every day. They care not for the Constitution nor do they care who sits in the White House. They will simply use opportunities presented by weak minded and weak willed career politicians to erode your liberty. These folks march in legion with Jim Crow as usurpers and need to be dealt with as such. As the left make their lists we make ours.

Camotim

DEFUND ATF!!!

TNJEWBOY

Defund the entire federal police state regulatory apparatus.

Dee

Defund the local police department too

Arny

If not elected by the people, YES.

JPM

The BATFE under Biden will make the Gestapo look like girl scouts, okay, retarded girl scouts, but you get my drift.

Gdubb

ATF should be ashamed. Using tax payer funds to collude with domestic terrorists (Harris/Biden “campaign”) to remove American’s rights sounds treasonous.

JNew

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Like most of the burocracy, the ATF makes up the deep state.

Dave in Fairfax

Gdubb,
They’d have to be capable of feeling shame.

GomeznSA

Dave – and ethics and a moral compass. The mere fact that they are making arbitrary and capricious ‘decisions’ – based solely on their opinions is ample proof of their ultimate goals.

Heed the Call-up

If it’s not auto, I should be able to have it and enjoy it any way I want that is legal.

When they make them illegal, then you are okay with it? We are still “allowed” to own automatic firearms. We just are not “allowed” to own “new” automatic firearms. You can thank Bush I and the NRA for that.

Don

We have had revenuers since the nation was formed. Remember the 200+ year old Whiskey Rebellion?

Ryben Flynn

ATF is still taking their orders from obama.

GomeznSA

Ryben – possibly true – but who is pulling barky’s strings? Enquiring minds want to know. Most of us have our suspicions but it is likely there are several of them.

Joe Shooter

LMAO…how stupid are you!

JDC

President Trump should take away the right of federal civilians to unionize. The AFGE was established by executive order…time to end it. In a previous job, we had to have one senior employee who spent 75% of her time dealing with the union demands. In my last govt job, I heard a very senior IRS (in management) employee say “F-bomb Bush” in the middle of a Senior Executive Board meeting. Not sure the Hatch act applied, as it was a group of senior leaders not the public, BUT it was certainly in bad taste and obviously she wasn’t shy about… Read more »

GomeznSA

JDC – you do remember that one of the (few) things that FDR got right was not allowing fedzilla employees to unionize.

Last edited 3 years ago by GomeznSA
JDT

Thanks to the bump stock ban setting a precedence now anything can be made illegal without the proper steps of making law. We will be lucky to own a blunderbuss in the future.

JSNMGC

I agree. It was a horrible decision to order the BATFE to redefine the meaning of words. There was absolutely no reason for Trump to issue that directive.

JSNMGC

I would be interested to know if anyone (other than the NRA) tried to counsel him before or after the infamous 2/28/18 “bi-partisan meeting on gun violence.” If he hadn’t boasted that he was going to be more effective than Obama at implementing more gun control (and if he hadn’t gone on to fulfill his promise to “take care of bump stocks” himself), I think he would have been re-elected.

He can’t seem to resist being a populist, even if it means turning his back on the most die-hard subset of his base.

BOB

Who NEEDS a bumpstock? The guy next door let me try out his before they were banned. You can’t aim. I couldn’t hit the backstop, let alone the target. BTW..I used to hump a M-60 back in the 70’s.

Heed the Call-up

When did our inalienable rights become the Bill of Needs?

JSNMGC

A large percentage of Americans have had enough of being told what they “need” by government employees.

What you used to do for a paycheck is irrelevant.

Deplorable Bill

The guestapo, those who fund them, those who go along with them should and just might, in the near future, be gifted with a Texas necktie party. Like at Nuremberg after the war those who were tyrants received a short drop — to hell.

Arm up and carry on

JH1961

I like to imagine an SF-style deck of ‘playing cards’ depicting all of the ‘Enemies of America’.

toomanyhobbies

and it is starting even before the electoral college can convene…
What do ya think when Trumps lawyers win and Biden loses…

Morrigan

I saw this coming when my students started buying these. I have no problem with them or “bump-stocks” either but my ancestors were Druids and I can see into the future. Both of these were clearly targets for the
Feebs, predictable as a sunrise. Both are seen by them as a way to side-step certain NFA regulations. I am only surprised it took this long.

rollinshultz

I’m glad to hear this. Not that they are doing it, but that they have been exposed. Let all these leftists expose themselves as Biden lovers, and when President Trump wins, he can double down and make them pay.

JH1961

They should read ‘Unintended Consequences’ .

Last edited 3 years ago by JH1961
BOB

Who NEEDS a bumpstock? The guy next door let me try out his before they were banned. You can’t aim. I couldn’t hit the backstop, let alone the target. BTW..I used to hump a M-60 back in the 70’s.

Don

It was only a matter of time on the braces. Everyone knows they are short barreled rifles. Biden-Harris will move to outlaw them.

Heed the Call-up

Then so are all other handguns.

GomeznSA

NOPE “Everyone knows” is not at all accurate. Most of us realize what the original intent of ‘braces’ was and use them accordingly. The ability to ‘shoulder’ that device does NOT change that original intent.

JSNMGC

Removing short-barreled rifles from the NFA of 1934 and having the government end their obsession with attempting to differentiate a handgun from a rifle would resolve the whole thing. You up for that Don?