"So now that the ATF is being compared to CA, does that mean all of the people that have said to get of out CA because it's a lost cause will take their own advice and get out of the USA?"
No, but maybe the ATF and portions of CA should
"The shame falls squarely on the shoulders of Sig and all those who advocated using the Sig Arm Brace as a shoulder stock."
I'm pretty sure SIG
specifically never advocated shouldering the brace for a very good reason; it was everybody else's lying eyes (and loud yaps) that were the problem...supposedly. Letter two would have made SIG felons for intending to make an SBR (though letter 3 makes it perfectly fine to assemble a pistol brace for the purpose of
others shouldering the gun, just so long as you don't do it yourself, right? Since there's no thought/pre-crime statute, here?)
"Federal law and ATF rulings since 1934 have consistently held that a shoulder stock on a handgun requires a tax stamp. That's why many (me included) said Uh......that's a shoulder stock."
Agreed, and yet it is somehow not the ATF's fault for failing to recognize an object that was clearly <George Orwell> "
double-plus-ultra readily convertible" to a device that could be placed against the shoulder. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, though; this is the same Bureau that constantly "oops-es" demill requirements to the point that functional select fire guns routinely slip through for a while, then wastes time & scares people by tracking down the items for rework/seizure. Same Bureau that took +50 years to figure out open bolt guns are very easily convertible to fully automatic fire.
"I fault ATF for not clarifying legal use in the original determination letter."
When has the ATF clarified the (il)legal uses for other Title 1 firearms, though? If they didn't have the authority to make the distinction originally (which is why they specifically stated shoulder fire was not subject to SBR restrictions) why do they have it now? Because they say they found it? Like on a table somewhere? Where's it been for +80 years? The closest thing to cite is that magic trick that turns a 'firearm' into an AOW in certain cases, and even that has a very limited (and spotty) judicial track record (since even pistols with attached vertical foregrips have been ruled
not AOW's in the past). There's also very clear language about the item as
capable of being concealed in that case; "capable of being shoulder fired" is not how rifles are defined, short or otherwise.
"I fault Sig for not asking for that distinction from the get go."
Can you blame them (and I don't think it was SIG, but the inventor who filed the letter; incidentally for exactly the stated bracing reasons)? They stood to make a ton of money if they could get this one past the Bureau, and somehow they pulled it off. More power to 'em. While a lot of folks may think this is foul doin's on SIG's part to "use" us this way, the fact remains that they have been, and are, doing more to fight NFA overreach than the NRA has in a while* --again, for the evil money-- so I let it slide. This whole thing was pretty obvious as a "It's a Trap!" meme from the get-go, though (anyone who knew what NFA was careful about their involvement with the SIG brace)
"Perhaps its shame on me but I don't feel that rescinding a decision with no grandfathering is fair."
Well, not that the word "fair" is anywhere in the NFA or GCA, but I, too, agree that the ATF burned what little good will they might have had with this decision by not offering an SBR amnesty for these things and halting all new sales as "pistols." Instead, the current situation puts all the burden on the public, and needlessly/recklessly so. An awful lot of people are going to be unknowingly exposed to extremely serious felony charges because the ATF
chose to direct their statement
not towards those best suited to abide by it.
TCB
*between the "brace" and "silencer" efforts, they have laid open the two more vulnerable points of the NFA to direct, probing, scrutiny. Prompting the ATF to squirm greatly, of course.
**Last stupid thought of the night; if shouldering 'manufactures' the taxable SBR, unshouldering it would as well, otherwise every single photographed shoulder-er is a slam dunk case the ATF
will get around to pursuing eventually as a possession charge --they're kind of required to in light of the new ruling and lack of amnesty. If releasing the brace 'unmakes' the device, then you have the even more illogical situation of as many counts of manufacture as destruction of evidence as times your shouldered the thing, and the comical inability to demonstrate the crime in a court room without an SOT filing paperwork in advance of each shouldering
.