Courts Killed the Brace Rule. ATF Is Still Enforcing It.

The Fifth Circuit vacated Biden's 2023 pistol brace rule in 2024. Gone. Dead. Off the books.

ATF is still enforcing it anyway.

The Washington Times reports the agency is facing fresh congressional scrutiny for continuing to pursue gun owners through investigations and enforcement actions built on a regulation with zero legal standing. This isn't a paperwork lag. **This is an agency that has decided court rulings are optional.**

Let that sink in. A federal court told ATF the rule doesn't exist. ATF agents are still showing up.

Biden's brace rule was one of the most aggressive executive gun grabs in recent memory—a unilateral attempt to reclassify millions of legally owned pistols as short-barreled rifles, instantly exposing owners to felony NFA violations for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Gun owners complied, registered, or destroyed property under threat of federal prosecution. Then courts threw the whole thing out.

And ATF kept moving.

**That chilling effect on law-abiding gun owners wasn't a side effect. It was the strategy.**

Congressional pressure is now rebuilding on this specific issue, signaling that oversight on the Hill isn't letting this die quietly. The question being sharpened for ATF Director Kash Patel is brutal in its simplicity: how many active enforcement actions are still tied to a vacated rule, and when does the agency drop them?

Acting AG Todd Blanche's DOJ owns this now. The bureau is under their authority. Every case that moves forward under a court-invalidated regulation is a choice—and someone has to answer for it.

This is the ATF playbook in four steps: move fast, criminalize first, ignore the courts, and let the pressure do the work long after the legal justification collapses. The goal was never just compliance. It was **fear**.

Watch this space. Congressional scrutiny of ATF's post-vacatur enforcement behavior is the next front in the brace fight—and if oversight hearings force Patel to put a number on active brace cases, that number is going to be ugly.

**What you can do right now:** Call your representative and demand they ask ATF Director Kash Patel directly—on the record—how many enforcement actions tied to the vacated brace rule are still open, and what the timeline is to close them. The courts did their job. Make Congress do theirs.