There's no need to try to add that additional complication into the mix.
This regulation/rule doesn't change state laws.
State laws can't legalize anything that this rule regulates.
The confusion I'm seeing is that people want the law to tell them clearly that their firearm is not regulated and can't find that information. It's not going to happen. Laws generally don't define the legal/unregulated, they define the illegal/regulated and everything else is automatically legal/unregulated.
Well, then, let's look at what's illegal/regulated. That can't include my "braced pistol", right?
Yeah...
When the federal code in question was written, everyone knew what a "stock" was and that rifles had them and pistols didn't. So there's not even a definition for "stock" in federal law.
Everyone knew what a rifle was and what a pistol was and there wasn't any confusion. So the definitions in federal law are not super-specific. There was simply no need.
But now we have pistols that are exactly like rifles in every respect except for not having stocks and having shorter barrels.
No problem, right? We can tell them apart because rifles have stocks and pistols don't. Except that federal law doesn't actually say that. And it also doesn't define "stock".
Hmmm... What about the short barrels? Nope, that doesn't work either because a short barrel can be present on a rifle (SBR) OR a pistol.
So just how DO we tell them apart, now that we have things that look and function exactly like rifles but that are supposedly pistols and things that look and function like stocks but that are supposedly something else? 300 pages later...
This regulation/rule doesn't change state laws.
State laws can't legalize anything that this rule regulates.
I agree that the rule is not hard to understand. What people are having difficulty with is that they don't like what it says.Hell, I'm not a lawyer and I know what the rule says.
The confusion I'm seeing is that people want the law to tell them clearly that their firearm is not regulated and can't find that information. It's not going to happen. Laws generally don't define the legal/unregulated, they define the illegal/regulated and everything else is automatically legal/unregulated.
Well, then, let's look at what's illegal/regulated. That can't include my "braced pistol", right?
Yeah...
When the federal code in question was written, everyone knew what a "stock" was and that rifles had them and pistols didn't. So there's not even a definition for "stock" in federal law.
Everyone knew what a rifle was and what a pistol was and there wasn't any confusion. So the definitions in federal law are not super-specific. There was simply no need.
But now we have pistols that are exactly like rifles in every respect except for not having stocks and having shorter barrels.
No problem, right? We can tell them apart because rifles have stocks and pistols don't. Except that federal law doesn't actually say that. And it also doesn't define "stock".
Hmmm... What about the short barrels? Nope, that doesn't work either because a short barrel can be present on a rifle (SBR) OR a pistol.
So just how DO we tell them apart, now that we have things that look and function exactly like rifles but that are supposedly pistols and things that look and function like stocks but that are supposedly something else? 300 pages later...