AR-Pistol Laws Explained

  

  Oh man, let's talk about the bullshit that is AR-Pistol legality. If you're not familiar with guns, prepare to get super confused. And there is going to be a shit ton of pictures to help me explain the fuckery you're about to witness. 

DIsclaimer, I’m not a lawyer, I don't claim to be a lawyer, nor will I ever pass the BAR Exam. I could probably pass the BAR in Arkansas now that I think about it, but I won't take it. If you do something stupid from reading this, thats your fucking problem. Ok let's get into it. 

What is the difference between an AR-rifle and AR-pistol? Rifles consist of a barrel that is over 16” in length. And you can add any common attachment and accessories you can get your little grubby hands on. 

Pistol can be anything under 16” in length BUT it cannot have a rifle stock or a vertical grip. 

Now let's talk more about those ScArY accessories that make these guns illegal. You can put ANY of these attachments on this Rifle, it's all perfectly legal. But you can NEVER make the barrel of this gun shorter than 16” because its registered as a rifle. 

Let's talk about the 2 circled items in this picture. The red circle is a SB tactical SBA3 Brace. Say it with me, BRACE. The green circled item is a Magpul MOE Stock, say it again, STOCK. With the brace being on this gun with the barrel being shorter than 16” this is perfectly legal, HOWEVER if i were to attach the stock onto this gun it would be classified as an SBR (short barrel rifle) and because its not registered as an SBR it would be an Illegal SBR. Straight to federal prison, the smartest fucking lawyer would be shit out of luck for you. 

So at this point you're probably all thinking. “Alex, What the fuck is the difference???” The brace was originally designed to help stabilize the gun against your forearm to make it easier to aim without tucking it into your shoulder. Some braces wrap around your arm while others don’t. The braces that don’t wrap around your arm are called blade braces, and they suck in my opinion. 

Top is normal brace.

Bottom is a blade brace, notice the blade brace is not attach to a gun because they SUUUUUCK

 

A stock has a flat piece that is meant to be tucked into your shoulder when firing. If this is on an 

AR-pistol then you just got a chance to live rent free at your local state or federal prison! 

So yea, what REALLY is the DIfference? Honestly nothing. I prefer a stock because they look cooler and are generally more comfortable, but on a rifle with a short barrel I'm not going for long range and precision, so a brace is fine. Can you hold a brace up to your shoulder? As I type this article, yes you can “shoulder” a brace. The ATF went back and forth a few times saying sholdering it is legal, now it's illegal, just kidding its legal again but its not…. Still following me? Because I promise you, it's going to make even less sense really soon. 

Now that we’re done with the ass end of the gun let's talk about the front end of the gun. Grips!!! Grips are great accessories to help you control your gun better. On a rifle you can put any kind of grip you want on it! For real go nuts! 

But if you put the wrong grip on your AR pistol guess what??? DING DING DING FELONY!! By putting a vertical grip on your AR-Pistol you become a mass murderer and active shooter. Because you can control your gun better you are more DEADLY. A vertical grip is any grip that is perfectly vertical or creates a 90 degree angle from the rail or handguard of your gun. You can however put angle grips on your guns. An angle grip is literally any grip 89 degrees or less. Yes, you heard me right. 90 degree grips illegal, 89 degree or less legal. I can’t make this shit up. 

                    Top is a vertical grip. Legal to have on Rifle, Illegal to have on pistol.  

                                Bottom are angle grips, legal on any kind of gun.

That's a lot of crazy rules right? BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!! If the overall length of the gun is beyond 26” (cannot include the brace in this measurement) then you can put a vertical grip on your AR-pistol. Yes 26” for some reason is the “fuck it” point where the ATF agent started sobering up from their cocain high and gave us this privilege to run a vert grip on a AR-pistol. 

Also, i’m not going to touch too much on this, but if you add a shoulder stock to a traditional pistol, you’ve now converted it to a SBR. Yes the picture below this in the eyes of the ATF is a rifle. 

So in a nutshell that’s how the laws “work” for AR-Pistols. It is very confusing and very frustrating. Why does the government make these bizarre rules and laws? Honestly that's something I'm not going to get into, this is already long enough and I can do a separate post about that. I will say that some of it though is gun accessory companies designing shit to get around laws and then the ATF making new laws to make those loophole accessories illegal too. 

I will do more posts about gun laws that make no sense, because there are a lot of them.

Most of the pictures used are my own, some are random google images. One photo is from Pewpew tactical, great website to learn new stuff.

Special thanks to Vilo from Spicy J and the Sleeze Junkies, for lettin me borrow some of his shit for pictures.