I’ll try to be brief with my understanding and opinion.
Talyon, you are right with your history of the AR pistol, except the newest opinion from the ATF is it is ok to incidentally or occasionally shoulder the brace.
No one really knows what’s going to happen in the future. At one point, there was to be a points system to determine whether you had a pistol or rifle. A brace was ok in this system, but accrued certain points depending on the brace. There were also other things that accrued points such as the weight of the firearm, certain accessories accrued points and so on. If you reached a certain threshold of points, you had an SBR and not a pistol. This is the system that was put up for comments.
With this new thing that just came out with the brace amnesty, it seems to me that braces are basically done away with. If it’s braced, it’s an SBR and must be registered. If there is no brace, it’s a pistol. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that’s the crux. From what I’ve heard and read, as BassBob said, many people believe that the picture is required in order to be exempt from the $200 tax. You are showing the ATF that you started as a pistol with a brace. If you start with a stock and have a stock on it, it’s an SBR from the start and you must still pay the $200 stamp. There’s talk that once you get the stamp (no $200 for the pistol), you can then stock it if you want. The picture is just to give you amnesty from the fee.
In terms of the engraving, there is speculation about that as well. The engraving applies to the “maker“ of the SBR. If you bought a pistol (or at least the lower) from a manufacturer as something other than a rifle, you are not the maker of the firearm and the serial number stamped on the lower will suffice as the identifying marker and an engraving won’t be required. You’ll just need to show the maker and serial number.
The problem is “who knows”? This whole thing has changed already and may change again before implementation. Or there may never be an implementation. It sounds like the ATF is asking for funds for this “amnesty” program. I’m guessing that means they need $200 times however many pistols they anticipate being turned into SBRs. If Congress denies the funding for this, they may not be able to implement an amnesty program. Then what happens? Do they not do anything? Or do they require all braced pistol owners to surrender their weapons (doubt it) or do they require them to SBR them and pay the tax? I’m not sure they can require that either. So, no one really knows what will wind up happening.
I’m pretty sure that no matter what happens short of nothing, there will be lawsuits challenging their decision. Then the question will be - do the changes go into effect while the lawsuits go on, or will a court put a stop order on the implementation until the lawsuits are complete? Again, who knows?
For me, I’m keeping my braced pistol a braced pistol until something is for sure. I don’t like just the buffer tube thing. So, if it comes down to it, I’ll wind up SBRing it. But I’m not doing anything until I absolutely have to…
I know, I know, that was a lot for saying I was keeping it brief.
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