A Rant: Short barrel rifles are not “pistols”

One trend that is has become popular amongst firearm manufacturers is taking a rifle, such as the AR15, shortening the barrel, leaving the stock off or installing an “arm brace” and calling it a pistol. 

OK, I know and understand why they are doing this, because a short barreled rifle (SBR) is very cool and fun to shoot.  But we have a lot of old, outdated laws in America that say you need a special license if your rifle has a barrel less than 16 inches in length. 

Thus, the birth of the arm brace.  The arm brace started life as a way for people with physical infirmities to actual shoot rifles.  Then everyone realized it also makes for an improvised shoulder stock.  With an emphasis on improvised. 

After some legal back and forth, the ATF finally gave a ruling that arm braces are not shoulder stocks and it is OK if it happens to touch your shoulder. 

Now everyone and their brother makes very large and unwieldy “pistols” in a variety of calibers that are not very comfortable to shoot or are just novelty, range toys. 

This nonsense needs to stop.  Time to call a spade a spade. These are not pistols, they are in fact, short barreled rifles sans stock or with a bastardized stock that sucks. 

Here are a few examples from the last issues of Firearms News:

Industry nonsense

Not a "pistol"

Do you really want to shoot a short barreled

 .308 without a proper stock?

Also, not a "pistol"

How is this truly useful to you?

See?  

Just an SBR sans proper stock.

Not a "pistol"

What needs to be done is to unite together, the entire gun industry and gun community and make the government scrap these old, archaic laws that are no longer useful and pass a handful of intelligent and effective gun laws.

It is the dawn of the 21^st century.  We have the power of the Internet where information travels around the globe within minutes.  There is no reason I should be prohibited from buying a short barreled rifle, a silencer, or even a belt-fed machine gun, especially if we continue down the road of mandatory background checks.

Instead of building bastardized rifles and other schlock, let’s fix the gun laws so we can buy what we actually want, useful tools for sport and defense.  Not these bastardized firearms that effectively become nothing more than expensive, novelty range toys.

By: Mez

9/15/2018