ATF Pistol Brace Rule is Finally Dead – Here’s How We Got Here

After years of legal battles, Trump's DOJ just put the final nail in the coffin of Biden's pistol brace ban

Well, it's official. The ATF's pistol brace rule is dead, dead, dead.

On July 17, 2025, the Trump Administration's Department of Justice agreed to dismiss its appeal in Mock v. Bondi, the case that had already killed the Biden Administration's attempt to turn millions of law-abiding gun owners into felons overnight. No more appeals, no more legal uncertainty – the rule that would have classified your braced AR pistol as a short-barreled rifle is gone for good.

If you've been following this saga (and if you own a pistol brace, you probably have), you know what a rollercoaster this has been. Let me walk you through how we got here, because this story perfectly captures everything wrong with how our government has been treating gun owners for the past decade.

The Backstory: When Good Intentions Met Government Overreach

Let's start at the beginning. Pistol braces were originally designed to help disabled veterans and others with mobility issues stabilize AR-style pistols for more accurate shooting. It was a brilliant, simple solution that helped people exercise their Second Amendment rights more effectively.

And initially, the ATF agreed. As we covered back when Biden's transition team was already planning their attack, the ATF first approved pistol braces in 2012, clearly stating that adding a brace wouldn't change a pistol's legal classification.

But then the flip-flopping began. We've been tracking this regulatory whiplash for years, and it's been maddening to watch:

• 2012: ATF says braces are fine, don't change the gun's classification
• 2014: ATF doubles down – even shouldering a braced pistol doesn't make it an SBR
• 2015: Whoops! ATF changes its mind. Now shouldering might make you a felon
• 2017: Another reversal. Braces are “perfectly legal accessories” but don't shoulder them… or maybe do? Nobody really knew
• 2021-2023: Biden administration decides to end the confusion by just banning everything

This kind of regulatory ping-pong ball treatment is exactly why so many gun owners have lost faith in federal agencies. You buy something that's explicitly legal, the government flip-flops for a decade, and then suddenly you're facing 10 years in federal prison for owning the same thing they approved.

Biden's War on Braces

We saw this coming from a mile away. During meetings with Biden's transition team in 2020, ATF officials literally told them that pistol braces were one of their top two regulatory targets. This wasn't some organic policy development – it was a deliberate political decision to go after millions of gun owners.

The rule they finally published in January 2023 was a masterpiece of bureaucratic malice. Instead of clear guidelines, they created a subjective mess that considered everything from your gun's weight to what optic you mounted to how some theoretical “general public” might use your firearm.

The original proposal at least had a point system so you could figure out if you were about to become a felon. But the final rule? They scrapped that and replaced it with pure government discretion. As one court later noted, it was “nigh impossible for a regular citizen to determine what constitutes a braced pistol.”

And here's the kicker – they estimated there were somewhere between 3 and 40 million pistol braces in circulation. Even using their conservative estimate, we're talking about potentially criminalizing millions of Americans who had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The Compliance Disaster

When the rule took effect, gun owners faced an impossible choice: register your pistol as a short-barreled rifle (with all the NFA paperwork, wait times, and $200 tax that normally entails), remove the brace, install a longer barrel, or destroy your firearm entirely. Oh, and you had until May 31, 2023 to figure it out, or face up to 10 years in federal prison.

The result? Mass non-compliance on a scale that should have embarrassed any reasonable administration. The ATF received only 255,162 registration applications. Even using their own conservative estimates, that's a compliance rate of maybe 8% at best. More realistically, we're probably looking at less than 1% of brace owners actually registering.

When 90-99% of people affected by your law ignore it, that's not a law – that's tyranny that people are rightfully rejecting.

The Courts Fight Back

Thankfully, we live in a country where courts can still check executive overreach. Multiple lawsuits challenged the rule, and gun rights organizations like the Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America, and others went to work.

We've been tracking these court victories, and they were decisive:

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act by implementing a vague, subjective test that bore no resemblance to what was originally proposed for public comment. Federal District Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas completely vacated the rule, calling it arbitrary and capricious. The Eighth Circuit piled on with another ruling against the ATF.

Every court that seriously examined this rule found the same thing: the ATF had exceeded its authority and created something so vague and subjective that ordinary people couldn't comply even if they wanted to.

Trump's DOJ Ends the Madness

When Trump returned to office in January 2025, many of us hoped his administration would stop defending Biden's gun control overreach. The joint dismissal in Mock v. Bondi proved we were right to be optimistic.

As Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs put it: “Today is a great day for freedom and the American people. The dismissal of this appeal should be the final nail in the coffin of this unconstitutional Biden ATF assault on gun owners.”

And he's absolutely right. No more appeals, no more uncertainty. The rule is dead, and it's not coming back under this administration.

What This Really Means

This victory goes way beyond just pistol braces, though obviously that's huge for the millions of Americans who own them. This case proves that even the most aggressive gun control initiatives can be stopped when they violate basic principles of law and constitutional rights.

It also shows the importance of having judges who understand that government agencies can't just make up rules as they go along. The Administrative Procedure Act exists for a reason – to prevent exactly this kind of arbitrary exercise of power.

For gun owners, this should be both a celebration and a wake-up call. We won this one, but only because we fought it in court and eventually got an administration that wouldn't defend bad policy. The lesson? Stay engaged, support organizations fighting these battles, and never assume your rights are safe just because something is currently legal.

Moving Forward

Interestingly, you won't find much coverage of this victory in mainstream outlets like CNN or the New York Times – the same outlets that extensively covered Biden's gun control initiatives apparently aren't interested in reporting their failures.

But for those of us who care about the Second Amendment, this is a massive win. Accessories that were legal for over a decade, banned for two years, and are now legal again represent more than just a regulatory victory. They represent proof that we can still beat government overreach when we work together.

The pistol brace rule is dead. Now let's make sure it stays that way, and keep fighting to roll back the rest of Biden's anti-gun legacy.

Stay armed, stay free, and keep fighting the good fight.