Administration under Trump greenlights selling device transforming conventional firearms into rapid-fire weapons akin to machine guns.
In a surprising move, the Trump administration has chosen to allow the sale of devices that enable standard firearms to shoot like machine guns, a decision that one source close to the matter described as "the most dangerous thing this administration has done" concerning gun policy.
On a Friday, the Department of Justice announced a settlement in a lawsuit brought by the National Association for Gun Rights. The lawsuit challenged a rule by the ATF banning "forced reset triggers" – devices that let semiautomatic weapons fire rapid bursts of bullets.
"We believe the 2nd Amendment isn't a secondary right," Attorney General Pamela Bondi stated. "With this settlement, we're stopping unnecessary litigation and improving public safety."
Vanessa Gonzalez, a spokesperson for Giffords, a national gun violence prevention group headed by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, spoke out against the decision.
"This administration has made machine guns legal," Gonzalez said. "Lives will be lost due to this reckless move. Shooters will be able to inflict unimaginable damage. The only ones who benefit from these being available are those who stand to profit, while everyone else will face the consequences."
Ongoing court battles
This decision comes after a majority of judges on the conservative 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seemed to side with the gun rights group during oral arguments in December. The judges referred to a Supreme Court decision last year finding that another rapid-fire device, called a bump stock, did not transform firearms into illegal machine guns.
Because forced reset trigger devices won't be deemed as firearms, they can be purchased anonymously, without a background or age check. Machine guns have been illegal in the United States since 1986, a concept that even gun rights groups have largely accepted.
Various lawsuits have been filed over the forced reset trigger ban, and lower court judges have issued rulings on both sides of the issue. Should the 5th Circuit rule against the ban, the matter would likely have ended up before the Supreme Court.
But now, the Trump administration is abandoning efforts to restrict the devices. A former senior ATF official criticized the move and predicted that the courts would have upheld a ban on reset trigger devices.
"We were going to win this," the former senior ATF official stated. "These things aren't like bump stocks."
Trump's White House counsel, David Warrington, served as a co-founder of the National Association for Gun Rights and was counsel of record in the lawsuit until he joined the Trump administration. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Warrington's role, if any, in the settlement discussions.
Brady United, the nation's oldest gun violence prevention group, denounced Warrington's role.
"This underhanded deal led by Trump's general counsel – a founding member of one of the biggest gun rights groups in the country – not only represents an appalling misuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible gun safety policy and puts communities directly in harm's way," Kris Brown, the group's president, said in a statement to NBC News.
A DOJ official stated that Warrington was not involved in the settlement negotiations.
A settlement 'in perpetuity'
Under the settlement, the Justice Department "vows, in perpetuity, not to enforce the machine gun ban against any device that functions like forced reset triggers," a source familiar with the settlement informed NBC News. Additionally, the ATF must return thousands of seized forced reset triggers to their original owners. In essence, machine guns will soon become legal to possess and purchase, and the federal government will flood the market with these devices.
Some of the most popular models of forced reset triggers are made by a company called Rare Breed Triggers, which has been sued by the ATF in a separate case. That case will need to be dropped as part of the settlement.
The Justice Department press release declared that the settlement "includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly enhance public safety in regard to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not create or design FRTs for use in any pistol and will uphold its patents to prevent infringement that could pose a threat to public safety. Furthermore, Rare Breed agrees to promote the safe and responsible use of its products."
Supporters of the devices doubt that forced reset triggers convert standard guns into machine guns. However, according to court documentation, the ATF found that these devices enable a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to fire at the same rate as a military M-16 in automatic mode.
The ban on forced reset triggers originated during the first Trump administration, at the same time the ATF also banned bump stocks, another device that facilitates rapid trigger pulls imitating the firing rate of a machine gun. The gunman responsible for the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting killed 58 people while firing from his hotel room window using bump stocks.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 margin that the bump stock ban was invalid. The majority concluded that the devices did not fit the definition of a machine gun as they didn't allow for automatic fire with a single trigger pull[3].
"With this settlement, the White House has indefinitely forsworn enforcing the ban on forced reset triggers, devices that—as per court documentation—enable semiautomatic AR-15 rifles to fire at the same rate as a military M-16 in automatic mode. Moreover, the technology within these triggers, often produced by companies like Rare Breed Triggers, will soon be legal for possession and purchase, potentially flooding the market."
"In light of the ongoing technology-related legal battles, such as the case against Rare Breed Triggers, it remains unclear how the recent decision on forced reset triggers will impact the overall gun policy landscape, especially concerning the debate around the intersection of technology and potentially lethal weaponry."
