GOA Praises Introduction of Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act

[Charlie T Waite]

December 3, 2019
For immediate release

GOA Praises Introduction of Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act

Springfield, VA — On December 2, 2019, the Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Roger Marshall.

The bill undoes the egregiously unconstitutional registration, taxation, and regulation of short-barreled rifles by removing them from the National Firearms Act (NFA) and forcing the ATF to destroy all related records.

“The introduction of this bill is yet another landmark towards restoring the constitutionally-recognized right to keep and bear arms without infringement by federal regulations and whimsical rulemaking by anti-gun D.C. bureaucrats,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for GOA. “When the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment, intending to protect individuals from infringements, they did not ‘leave room’ for a federal agency to regulate barrel lengths on rifles or pistols.”

Under current law, the difference between a “pistol AR-15” and a “short barreled rifle AR-15” is ATF rulemaking and mind-numbing definitions and differences between “rifle stocks” and “pistol braces.”

GOA supports a full repeal of the NFA and has challenged the NFA’s unconstitutional regulation of suppressors with the Silencers Help Us Save Hearing Act, the Hearing Protection Act, and Kettler v. US. But for far too long, other aspects of the National Firearms Act—an act of gun control by nature—have gone unchallenged in Congress.

“Now gun owners have a legislative vehicle to attack another element of the National Firearms Act’s meaningless regulation,” Johnston concluded. “GOA urges every member of the House of Representatives to cosponsor this bill.”