Senate rejects House-passed measure overturning Biden rule on pistol braces

The Senate voted largely along party lines Thursday to reject a Republican-sponsored resolution that would have overturned a Biden administration rule effectively banning the use of stabilizing braces on pistols — devices that have been used in several mass shootings.

Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), two centrist Democrats facing tough reelection races next year in red states, voted against the resolution. They both have a history of supporting gun-owners’ rights.

The resolution failed by a vote of 49 to 50.

President Biden had said he would veto the measure, which the House approved June 13.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said repealing the rule effectively banning pistol braces would have made it “easier to conceal an assault-style pistol, something that’s been used in mass shooting after mass shooting.”

“Shame on them,” he said of Republicans who pushed to overturn the regulation.

“If you’ve ever seen a gunman fire what looks like a machine gun with one hand, that’s what pistol braces allow you to do,” he said.

The White House noted in a statement of administration policy that gunmen have used brace devices in mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and Boulder, Colo.

The resolution, which Republicans moved under the Congressional Review Act, would have nullified the rule finalized in January by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) stating that any stabilizing brace attached to a pistol with a barrel less than 16 inches would be regulated as a “short-barreled rifle” under the 1968 Gun Control Act.

Congress passed legislation in the 1980s to impose a 10-year prison sentencing enhancement for using a short-barreled rifle in any violent or drug trafficking crime.

Under the new Biden administration rule, gun owners who have a pistol with a stabilizing brace can either add a longer barrel to the firearm, remove the brace, turn the firearm in to a local ATF office or register it as a short-barreled rifle with federal authorities.

“Short-barreled rifles are more concealable than long guns, yet more dangerous and accurate at a distance than traditional pistols. For these reasons, they are particularly lethal, which is why Congress has deemed them to be dangerous and unusual weapons subject to strict regulation since 1934,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a June 12 statement of policy.

The White House budget office said earlier this month that Biden would veto the measure.

“For almost 90 years, short-barreled rifles have been controlled under the National Firearms Act, along with machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. Why? Because they combine the accuracy of a rifle with the concealability of a handgun. It’s a deadly combination,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said before the vote.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), the House sponsor of the resolution, called the ATF rule “unconstitutional” and an example of “executive overreach.”

The House passed the resolution earlier this month by a largely partisan vote of 219 to 210.

Two Democrats voted for it and two Republicans voted against it.

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