On Friday, May 16, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the settlement of several lawsuits arising from the Biden-Harris regime’s attempt to reclassify forced reset triggers (FRTs) as “machineguns.” DOJ’s announcement cited President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting Second Amendment Rights and the deliberations of the Attorney General’s Second Amendment Task Force as the impetus behind the government’s decision. The government also agreed to return seized FRTs, including from Rare Breed, a leading FRT manufacturer involved in the suits, and from Americans who had bought the triggers and surrendered them under allegations of illegal machinegun possession. FRTs will now likely return to the market, although the settlement contains terms that may limit their proliferation.
FRTs are aftermarket parts that forcibly reset the trigger of a semiautomatic firearm in which they are inserted to its forward position. In the hands of a skilled operator, they allow for a faster rate of fire than can typically be achieved with a conventional semiautomatic trigger. Importantly, however, they do not fundamentally alter the firing mechanism of the gun. The hammer must still be released from its sear surface for every round fired, and the trigger must still reset after each fired round.
Obtaining optimum performance and enhanced cyclic rates of fire with an FRT depend heavily on the operating principles of the gun itself, as well as on the operator’s control of his trigger finger and shoulder weld. If the trigger is held fixed in its rearward position the firearm will malfunction.
Despite this and despite the federal statutory definition of a machinegun, which refers to a firearm that “shoots …automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger,” ATF began reclassifying FRTs as machineguns in 2021. On March 22, 2022, the ATF issued an “Open Letter to All Federal Firearm Licensees” that warned of this posture. The ATF also launched civil and criminal enforcement actions against manufacturers, sellers, and even individual possessors of FRTs. ATF’s seizures of the devices continued up to at least September 2023. In some cases, individual owners of the devices were contacted by ATF and urged to “voluntarily” surrender them, on pain of possible felony prosecution for illegal possession of a machinegun.
A number of plaintiffs – including Rare Breed, various individuals, and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) – sued various parties within DOJ, claiming its classification of FRTs was in violation of federal law.
Meanwhile, ATF successfully moved for a preliminary injunction in the Eastern District of New York to prevent Rare Breed from selling any FRTs and to require that it “preserve all documents” related to the receipt of such devices by its “customer base.” The defendants’ appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Nearly a year later, on July 23, 2024, a federal district judge in the Northern District of Texas vacated the ATF’s “unlawful classification of FRTs as ‘machineguns’” as “contrary to law” and “done in a manner beyond the scope of its legitimate statutory authority … .” The government then appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The government had additionally petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah for forfeiture of FRTs and other property seized from Rare Breed Triggers during its enforcement actions.
Significantly, however, no one at Rare Breed Triggers was ever criminally prosecuted for a federal machinegun offense.
In the midst of these proceedings, on June 14, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Garland v. Gargill, holding that adding a bump stock to a semiautomatic firearm does not create a machinegun. Specifically, the Court wrote:
With or without a bump stock, a shooter must release and reset the trigger between every shot. And, any subsequent shot fired after the trigger has been released and reset is the result of a separate and distinct “function of the trigger.” All that a bump stock does is accelerate the rate of fire by causing these distinct “function[s]” of the trigger to occur in rapid succession.
The agreement announced between DOJ, Rare Breed, NAGR, and the individual plaintiffs resolves all the above-mentioned cases. The appeals in the Second and Fifth Circuit will be dropped, and the government will dismiss its forfeiture case in the District of Utah and return Rare Breed’s property. Additionally, “The United States agrees, to the extent practicable, to return FRTs … that it has seized or taken as a result of a voluntary surrender.” Such returns, however, “must be requested by individual owners by September 30, 2025, consistent with the instructions provided on ATF’s public website.”
Critically, the government agrees in the settlement,
not to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) and the requirements of the National Firearms Act, Gun Control Act of 1968 as amended by the Hughes Amendment to the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, or any similar statute or agency interpretation of 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) under which an FRT is contended to be a “machinegun” or otherwise unlawful against any person or organization for possessing or transferring FRTs … .
But this concession is subject to two important qualifications. The first is that the FRT operates as described by the Northern District of Texas in its decision vacating ATF’s classification of FRTs as machineguns. The second is that the FRT not be designed for use in a handgun, defined for purposes of the agreement as “a firearm whose magazine loads into the trigger-hand grip.”
Rare Breed also agreed to certain conditions on its own continued business in FRTs. One is that “they will not develop or design FRTs for use in any handgun,” as previously defined, nor “market, advertise, or encourage individuals to put FRT triggers on any handgun.“ Additionally, Rare Breed and its officers agree to “take all reasonable efforts” to seek prohibitory injunctions at the company’s own expense under its FRT patent, provided they “have a good faith argument that the device is within the scope of the patent.” Finally, Rare Breed consented “to promote the safe and responsible use of its devices including by displaying such material on its website and other online platforms.”
The settlement clears the way for Rare Breed to continue manufacturing and selling FRTs that comply with the agreement’s terms. Other companies, however, may face barriers to entering the market during the pendency of Rare Breed’s patent. Should their designs significantly deviate from that patent, however, the government apparently reserves the right to judge on a case-by-case basis whether the item would be considered a machinegun.
Somewhat cryptically, the government also reserved the right not to return FRTs “that are evidence in criminal investigations or prosecutions or are subject to forfeiture pursuant to 27 C.F.R. § 478.152.” What this means, and how many such cases may be pending, is not clear. But it may draw a distinction between enforcement actions where mere possession, receipt, or transfer of the FRT is at issue versus those where a firearm equipped with an FRT was used in the commission of another offense.
Although the government appears in the agreement to establish a process for individuals whose FRTs were seized or surrendered under threat of prosecution to get them back, there are undoubtedly many more such individuals than those who are party to the agreement. ATF had notably already begun a process for members of the general public to get their FRTs back following the vacatur from the Northern District of Texas. Information regarding that process remains on the agency’s website.
Whether ATF intends to enforce its September 30 deadline against such non-party individuals remains to be seen. But persons affected by ATF’s unlawful classification may still have their own remedies, beyond those applicable to the parties in the cases resolved by the settlement.
It is important to note that nothing in the settlement disturbs the Northern District of Texas decision on the legality of ATF’s classification. On the other hand, the agreement also states it is not “intended to create rights enforceable by persons other than Named Claimants as plaintiffs in civil litigation,” so it doesn’t guarantee success or the government’s acquiescence in any such case.
Overall, the agreement appears to reasonably settle the outstanding civil cases on FRTs in a way that respects the rule of law and gives due deference to the fact that FRTs in the hands of law-abiding gun owners are not a per se threat to public safety. It doesn’t necessarily resolve every question that may arise in this area, or in the area of accelerating devices generally, but it is certainly a welcome departure from the overreaching and excessively punitive approach of the Biden-Harris administration.
Rare Breed, in particular, is to be commended for its tenacious and principled defense of its products and of those who lawfully use them.
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