FPC’s Statement on ATF’s Cease and Desist to Q, LLC Regarding the Honey Badger Pistol’s Status as a Purported Short Barrel Rifle
WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 6, 2020) — Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has issued the following statement regarding ATF’s action against Q, LLC’s (Q) Honey Badger Pistol and its status as a purported short barrel rifle:
ATF has once again unlawfully and unconstitutionally exceeded its authority and changed the law by issuing a new determination that is devoid of logic and reason, contains no explanation as to the manner in which it arrived at its conclusion, conflicts with its prior determinations, and embodies the very essence of “arbitrary and capricious”.
After examining a sample Q Honey Badger Pistol, the ATF’s Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD) concluded that “the objective features of the Honey Badger firearm, configured with the subject stabilizing brace, indicate the firearm is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder.” FATD further concluded that it is a SBR as defined by the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA). Yet, ATF does not explain how it arrived at this conclusion other than vague generalizations that the firearm was “designed” to be fired from the shoulder and by virtue of its barrel length meeting the definition of a SBR.
Earlier this summer, regarding the possible action regarding pistol braces, we said that our “Constitution requires an accountable legislature to enact just laws within specific, limited, and enumerated powers, not decreed by nameless bureaucrats with a political agenda, or even a president.” And when the ATF previously reversed a long-standing and well understood position that bump stock-type devices were not machine guns, FPC and Firearms Policy Foundation led the charge with the first lawsuit in the nation against ATF’s unlawful and unconstitutional act.
There can be no question that our Constitution requires accountability to coincide with the enactment of laws, and that those laws must be within specific, limited, and enumerated powers, not left to bureaucrats who escape all aspects of responsibility. Once more, we remind ATF and the executive branch that their authority has limits and that, if need be, they will once again be reminded of those limits through legal action.
FPC believes that the ATF, NFA, GCA, and every other law that threatens the People with disarmament and prison for exercising human rights should be abolished. Our legal team will continue to closely monitor this issue and take whatever action is necessary, possible, and prudent to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and our members against abusive government agencies and policies.
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend constitutional rights—especially the right to keep and bear arms—advance individual liberty, and restore freedom.
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The random, arbitrary and unilateral decision by ATF to create a rule making the ownership of AR platform pistols a felony is a blatant attack on every American’s Second Amendment rights. Beginning from the President, the Attorney General and down to Congress need to intercede and revamp the leadership of the ATF. Otherwise law abiding citizens are now potentially put in the position of being felons with the “stroke of a pen” who made a decision, and who is a bereaucrate, in other words, a “hired hand” of the taxpayers
The best solution to this issue is SBR’s being removed from NFA, that solves the problem altogether. That should be followed by removing suppressors as well. And since those two things were done we should just remove everything else to making said NFA null and void.