Why it matters: The 2023 brace rule is vacated and most NFA enforcement is paused, but the ATF has not given up the reading of the statute under which a braced pistol can be a short-barreled rifle. Whether a court rules on that reading, or dismisses the case first, affects what a future administration could do without writing a new rule.
Both sides in Texas v. ATF, the last pending nationwide challenge to the ATF's 2023 pistol brace rule, filed supplemental briefs on October 26 taking opposite positions on whether the case should continue, according to a new video from the Armed Scholar YouTube channel. The Justice Department argues the case has been moot for more than a year and should be dismissed. Texas, Gun Owners of America, the Gun Owners Foundation and an individual plaintiff argue that several claims remain live because the ATF still asserts authority to classify some braced pistols as short-barreled rifles under the text of the National Firearms Act alone.
How the pistol brace rule fight reached this point
The 2023 rule set out what the ATF called factoring criteria for deciding whether a pistol fitted with a stabilizing brace was in fact a rifle designed to be fired from the shoulder. The criteria weighed the firearm's weight, length, rear surface area, attached optics and accessories, marketing and overall configuration. Under that framework, the video notes, a large share of braced pistols already in circulation could be treated as short-barreled rifles subject to NFA registration, and lawsuits followed across the country.
In Mock, Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas vacated the rule in June 2024, and the government dropped its appeal in 2025. The video says most remaining challenges were then dismissed as moot. The Texas and GOA case, pending before Judge Drew Tipton in the Southern District of Texas, was not, because it challenges more than the rule itself: it targets the ATF's underlying reading of the statute, which the plaintiffs say the government has continued to defend.
Judge Tipton asks whether any pistol brace claims remain live
Rather than grant the government's request to dismiss, the video reports, Tipton directed the parties to address three developments: Congress's cut of the NFA making and transfer tax on short-barreled rifles and similar items to $0, effective January 1, 2026; the permanent injunction issued in August in the Silencer Shop Foundation case; and the ATF's nationwide NFA non-enforcement policy, which took effect October 9. He also asked whether any claims remain live, who the Silencer Shop injunction protects, how the doctrine of voluntary cessation bears on mootness, and whether more pleadings or evidence are needed.
Texas and GOA argue the ATF's SBR theory outlives the rule
In their brief, the plaintiffs concede that some claims are now moot. Their central argument, as the video summarizes it, is that the dispute has moved from the vacated rule to the ATF's continuing power to classify individual braced pistols as short-barreled rifles. They point to the ATF's proposal to formally remove the 2023 rule from its regulations, which they read as saying each braced firearm may be unique and may require case-by-case classification.
“The rule is gone; the dispute now is over the reading of the statute that produced it.”
Coleman Reyes, The ReticleThe plaintiffs also argue the Silencer Shop injunction does not settle the matter. According to the video, they acknowledge that GOA members, Texas, and the state's agencies and political subdivisions are covered by that injunction, but contend that legal consequences still turn on whether a braced firearm is an SBR in the first place. One example is interstate transport: ATF guidance still calls for owners to file a Form 5320.20 before moving a short-barreled rifle or shotgun across state lines, a step the plaintiffs say should not apply to a braced pistol that is not legally an SBR. They also cite state laws that prohibit short-barreled rifles or tie their legality to federal registration or NFA compliance.
On non-enforcement, the plaintiffs characterize the ATF policy as voluntary cessation that the government could reverse. They cite the agency's own acknowledgment that enforcement could resume if the Silencer Shop injunction is overturned, if Congress changes the tax, or if the Justice Department rescinds its guidance, including under a new administration. Gun owners, they argue, should not have to rely on executive discretion to know whether possessing a firearm is lawful now and will remain so.
DOJ says the brace case ended with the vacatur
The government's supplemental brief, filed the same day, argues that none of these developments revives the lawsuit. In the video's account, the Justice Department frames the case as a challenge to the 2023 rule: the rule was vacated more than a year ago, comparable cases have been dismissed, and nothing remains for the court to decide. The plaintiffs frame it more broadly, as a challenge to the statutory interpretation and classification practice that produced the rule and, they say, still affects gun owners.
Responses from both sides are due November 2. The video notes that Tipton said he is not seeking further briefing on the merits at this stage. The question before him is only whether a live controversy remains or whether the case should be dismissed as moot.
For context
- The ATF's 2023 stabilizing brace rule added factoring criteria to the regulatory definition of a rifle; Judge Reed O'Connor vacated it in Mock in June 2024, and the government dismissed its appeal in July 2025.
- A tax law signed July 4, 2025 cut the NFA making and transfer tax on short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors and AOWs from $200 to $0, effective January 1, 2026.
- In May 2026 the ATF proposed formally removing the 2023 rule's factoring criteria from its regulations.
- Under the voluntary cessation doctrine, a defendant's decision to stop challenged conduct generally does not moot a case unless it is clear the conduct will not resume.
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Permanent Nationwide Block of Short Barreled Rifle & Pistol Brace Rule Gets Pushback By DOJ!
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