Aussie enquiry

[terrydoc]

Hi Guy's

Just an enquiry about pistol braces after seeing them in the news over here, now we aren't allowed semi auto rifles here so I've never used a pistol brace but have used the 6 position adjustable "M4" style. Why is it those that don't require one for firing a rifle use them is it just for the rifle to be more compact, or is it just to keep a pistol version around the SBR length but not under?

 

Not looking for a fight just curious 

[shred]

In a nutshell--

 

"braces" are for the quirks of US law-- with a "brace" (which mostly look and work as much like stocks as the designer can get away with; although they are technically "designed" not to be stocks), the firearm legally is treated as a pistol and the barrel can be shorter than 16" (other bits can change too which I'll skip over).

 

With an actual "stock", a shorter than 16" barrel requires NFA SBR paperwork, fingerprints, processing time and an extra $200 tax.

 

This is goofy because originally in the 1930s the NFA act was going to cover pistols as well so they wanted to block the loopholes of making rifles and shotguns into pistols.  But they couldn't get the votes for pistols, so those got removed from the NFA but all the "you can't shorten rifles and shotguns to make them into pistols" language stayed.

 

There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics.  The current mess is ATF just recently said "naah, all those things we told you were braces before we now declare to be stocks"

 

[terrydoc]

Thanks Shred, but I'm after the practicals of why guy's use them.

[ddc]

I'm probably just repeating what Shred said but maybe using different words...

 

Why? Only to get around the NFA barrel length limitations.

 

Guys use them (or used them) as stocks on guns registered as pistols which had barrels less than 16" which they wished to use as if it was a rifle.

 

If it wasn't for the NFA and the ATF nobody would use a brace in lieu of a legitimate stock. 

 

It was an end run around ATF/NFA regulations. Frankly I'm surprised they were every approved in the first place.

 

In the end all this has done is display the ineptitude of the ATF and the ridiculousness of the whole NFA farce.

There are some laws that really need a sunset provision.

 

[terrydoc]

Thanks DDC that is what I thought.