EXCLUSIVE — Rep. Andrew Clyde: Biden DOJ ‘Doesn’t Want an Armed Citizenry’

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) sat down with Breitbart News on Thursday and discussed his plans to block the ATF pistol brace rule and his conviction that the Biden Department of Justice “doesn’t want an armed citizenry” in the first place.

Clyde made clear his opposition to the pistol brace rule. His reasons for that opposition include both general objections and more specific ones.

Generally, he expressed his conviction that our Founding Fathers did not set forth a plan of governance that included federal agencies making laws in place of the legislature.

He said, “The Justice Department is there to enforce the law, not to make the law. When you have the executive branch making the law and enforcing the law, then you have have a king, and a kingdom. Our Founders did not call for a king and they did not lay out a kingdom in the Constitution of the United States.”

Clyde then moved to specifics regarding the pistol brace rule and expressed his concern that the rule is part of a greater ATF push to acquire broader registration of firearms.

He noted, “What the ATF wants is they want to increase the registration database for the National Firearms Act. They want to register people across the country because, as we know, what comes before confiscation is registration. And confiscation, in my opinion, is the ultimate goal, because this Justice Department doesn’t want an armed citizenry.”

He added, “But this Justice Department wants a registered citizenry, so they know who’s got what, so they can come after us.”

Clyde’s contention is that the ATF pistol brace rule was born in this environment of hostility toward the Second Amendment and toward private gun ownership, and he plans to fight it tooth and nail.

He said he has “three tools” with which to fight the rule.

The first of those tools is the SHORT Act and the second is the Congressional Review Act.

On January 30 Breitbart News quoted Clyde outlining his plan to “reintroduce the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today Act, or the SHORT Act, to repeal elements of the National Firearms Act, thereby prohibiting the ATF from registering and banning pistols with stabilizing braces.”

He also noted that he would “introduce a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, to override the Biden administration’s unlawful overreach.”

Both acts, the SHORT Act and the Congressional Review Act, have the possibility of blocking the ATF pistol brace rule. But as Clyde told Breitbart News Thursday, the great challenge is that both of those routes will ultimately require President Biden’s signature, either to enact the SHORT Act legislation or to finalize a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act.

He made clear that getting Biden’s signature is not an impossibility, as there are ways; for instance, the SHORT Act legislation could be added to other, larger bills that Democrats are very anxious to pass.

However, Clyde indicated there is also a third way to block the ATF pistol brace rule.

He said: “I’m on the Appropriations Committee and we can defund this pistol brace rule, through what is called a limitation amendment. We can literally defund this rule and basically say, ‘No money may be spent executing or enforcing this particular pistol brace rule.’ And we can also do the very same thing with the ATF receiver/frame rule, from last August. I think both of them need to be defunded and I look forward to working with our appropriators to do it.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.