A federal court vacated the Biden administration's pistol brace rule. The rule classified braced AR-pistols as short-barreled rifles requiring NFA registration and a $200 tax stamp. The court threw it out. That should have ended it. Gun Owners of America says it didn't.In a statement this week, GOA said the ATF is continuing to treat braced pistols as illegal SBRs more than a year after the court ruling, and that the enforcement has persisted under the Trump administration. The group called out Attorney General Pam Bondi directly, noting that President Trump promised on the campaign trail to eliminate the pistol brace ban in his first week."The Department of Justice has now wasted over a year defending Biden-era gun control with cutesy word games in federal court," GOA said.The DOJ pushed back. A department spokesman told The Washington Times the claim is flat wrong."This is untrue. The Biden administration's pistol brace rule has been vacated by a court. DOJ is not defending the rule, and ATF is not enforcing it," the spokesman said.Here's the thing: They're both technically correct. The vacated rule is gone. But in a March 16 court filing in the ongoing Texas v. ATF case, the agency explicitly stated it is still enforcing the underlying NFA and GCA against braced pistols that meet the statutory definition of a short-barreled rifle. The DOJ isn't defending the Biden rule, it's enforcing the law the rule was built on. GOA has filed a motion for an injunction to stop that, too.So gun owners who own braced AR-pistols are not in the clear just because the rule was vacated. If the ATF determines a specific firearm qualifies as an SBR under the NFA's existing statutory definition (barrel under 16 inches, overall length under 26 inches, designed to be fired from the shoulder) the $200 tax stamp and registration requirements still apply, rule or no rule.For context: Pistol braces were originally designed as assistive devices for disabled shooters. The ATF approved them for years before the Biden administration reclassified millions of braced firearms as SBRs overnight, triggering a legal fight that ultimately killed the rule. The rule, while active, covered an estimated tens of millions of legally purchased firearms. The case is ongoing.Photo: docmonstereyes/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AR-15_Build_IMG_9439_(5507 547759).jpg