Comment on FR Doc # 2026-08930

RIN 1140-AA98 - Comments of B&T USA, LLC on "Removing Factoring Criteria for Firearms With Attached 'Stabilizing Braces,'" Docket No. ATF-2026-0335, ATF No. 2025R-11P, 91 FR 24453 (May 6, 2026). Full comment attached as PDF; this is a summary. B&T USA, LLC is a licensed manufacturer of destructive devices, ammunition for destructive devices, and armor piercing ammunition (Type 10), a licensed importer of the same (Type 11), and a Special Occupational Taxpayer. B&T USA manufactures firearms on both sides of the line this definition draws: pistols with stabilizing braces attached, and short-barreled rifles registered under the NFA. It imports approximately 12,000 firearms a year, predominantly pistols, with no braces attached, and disposes of firearms only to other licensees and to governmental agencies, completing no Forms 4473. Classification attaches at manufacture and at import regardless of who later receives the firearm, so its interest is in the classification standard, not in purchase, possession, or retail transfer, and it takes no position on those or on any constitutional question. It supports the rule and asks that it be finalized. 1. The preamble misstates the Sec. 478.11 definition this rule produces. Instruction 2 removes paragraphs (1) and (2) and leaves the introductory text. The preamble states the result will read "to use the energy of the explosive to fire only a single projectile." The codified text reads "the energy of the explosive in a fixed metallic cartridge to fire only a single projectile." Those five words survive the amendment. The Sec. 479.11 recitation is word-perfect. The preamble says the pre-2023 definitions "tracked" the statutes: true of Sec. 479.11 against 26 U.S.C. 5845(c), false of Sec. 478.11 against 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(7), which this rule quotes as "the energy of an explosive," with no cartridge limitation. ATF should conform the preamble and say whether the divergence is intended. A manufacturer classifies one firearm under both parts. 2. The $144.38 million in savings is measured against a baseline the rule says does not exist. The rule credits itself with relieving registration burdens while stating that the 2023 rule was universally vacated in June 2024 and that "for all intents and purposes, ATF has never actively enforced" it. If so, no one is incurring the costs being eliminated, and the no-action alternative - "[m]aintaining the status quo would continue these costs" - does not describe reality. This bears on the E.O. 12866 significance determination, not on the E.O. 14192 deregulatory classification, which B&T USA endorses. The benefit the rule does produce, conforming the codified text to the judgment that vacated the 2023 rule, appears in one clause and is left out of the accounting. 3. Arithmetic. The population is stated as 700,000 and computed throughout as 875,000, footnote 25 dividing a ten-year estimate by eight years; the underlying period, 2012 to 2021, is ten. The per-application burden is 3.78 hours in the cost analysis and 12 minutes in the PRA discussion of the same collection; at 12 minutes the annual figure falls below $100 million. Table 3 states $7 of mileage but its subtotals work only at $14. Table 2, the Table 3 column sum, and the Table 1 minimum all reconcile: the defects are in the inputs, not the computation. 4. The analysis does not identify its form, collection, or population. The narrative and PRA address Form 4 (1140-0014); Table 3 is labeled Form 1; the population is firearms manufactured, which for a licensee is a Form 2; the respondents are "individuals or households." The $144.38 million figure takes a burden from one and a population from another. 5. The RFA certification counts no entities and states the rule affects individuals only, while every dollar figure rests on an assumption that manufacturers will ramp up production. ATF should count Type 07, 08, 10, and 11 licensees from data it holds; B&T USA could not verify published counts and declines to estimate. The PRA attributes part of a 30-to-12-minute reduction to "changes proposed in this rule," which proposes no change to Form 4. 6. The rule is silent on firearms registered during the period that closed May 31, 2023, and B&T USA asks only that ATF state its position. It credits ATF's statement that no classifications issued under the 2023 rule, and notes that the "enhanced review procedures and controls" on which the benefit analysis rests are unpublished. On the case-by-case standard, B&T USA endorses and does not repeat the analysis at ATF-2026-0335-0177. Eight drafting corrections appear in the attachment, including a missing subsection G in Part III and a statement that the rule was "universally vacated" on November 8, 2023, contradicting footnote 12. The rule also has no severability clause. B&T USA endorses ATF's rejection of the guidance alternative on ATF's own reasoning, and recommends the rule take effect on publication under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(1).