Last week, I asked you to take urgent action to prevent a life-saving federal gun safety policy from being overturned. Hundreds of you spoke out. It worked.
In a victory for the gun safety movement, the U.S. Senate voted down a resolution1 which would have undone a Biden administration regulation on a deadly firearm modification that was used to kill 9 people and injure 27 others in just 32 seconds in the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.2 These “stabilizing braces” functionally turn pistols into short-barreled rifles – an especially dangerous weapon. But until the Biden administration took action, these enhanced pistols fell into a loophole and evaded the long-standing federal regulations on short-barreled rifles. Pennsylvania Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman stood with us and opposed this effort to undermine gun safety progress.3 They need to hear your gratitude to make sure they continue to stay strong on gun violence prevention.
Short-barrelled rifles have been subject to stricter federal regulation for decades, because they have the concealability and maneuverability of a pistol, but the firepower, accuracy, and lethality of a rifle. That’s why arm-stabilized pistols are increasingly a weapon of choice for mass shooters – not just in Dayton, but also at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado4 and most recently a school in Nashville, Tennessee.5
But gun manufacturers found a loophole around those regulations by designing and marketing stabilizing braces for pistols. The Biden administration regulation simply acknowledges this new danger by making stabilizing braces subject to the same regulations as short-barreled rifles. Keeping this policy in place is a win for community safety and public health.
Thank your Senators for standing up to the gun lobby and remind them we need champions in D.C. like them to keep fighting for gun safety measures.
