Feds: Forced-reset triggers are machine guns under US law (2024)

FAQs

Are forced reset triggers machine guns? ›

Typically, only one shot is fired per single function of the trigger. However, in the U.S., the ATF considers some forced reset triggers to be machineguns under the National Firearms Act. This determination by the ATF is currently being litigated by gun rights groups in the United States.

The ATF says constant finger pressure on an FRT-15 trigger will keep a rifle firing like an automatic, and the fact that the trigger is moving doesn't make it legal. The triggers were designed to work in AR-15-style rifles and take only minutes to install.

Rare Breed Triggers. The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) wants Rare Breed Triggers to stop selling their FRT-15 trigger. In July of 2021, the ATF served Rare Breed Triggers with a cease-and-desist order, ordering the company to stop selling its popular FRT-15 trigger.

Under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the US Constitution, a federal law is binding on all state and local governments so long as Congress duly enacted the law pursuant to one of its limited powers. Federal preemption of state law is uncommon in the area of firearms regulation, however.

Starting in 2021, ATF, through technical examination reports on two types of forced reset triggers and a letter to gun sellers, began to classify some of the devices as machine guns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968, which makes it illegal to possess a machine gun.

A New York federal judge last month in a different case upheld the ATF policy, saying that the devices were machine guns because they could be fired rapidly by pulling back on the trigger continuously, and banned a company from selling forced reset trigger devices.

U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison issued a temporary restraining order in January barring Rare Breed from selling more of the triggers while the legal dispute plays out. Rare Breed said it was essentially forced to stop business in March 2022 after the ATF seized its inventory from its manufacturer in Utah.

As in all semi-automatic firearms, only one round is fired within a single function of the trigger. This allows guns outfitted with a binary trigger to avoid classification as a machine gun within the definitions used by United States federal law, as stated by various ATF private-letter rulings.

A federal judge in Texas sharply limited the Biden administration's ability to enforce a ban on forced reset triggers, which are after-market accessories that allow AR-15 type rifles to be fired more rapidly by automatically returning the trigger to its starting position after it is pulled.

Rare Breed Triggers, founded in Florida and now based in Fargo, North Dakota, has sold about 100,000 FRT-15s since December 2020, taking in $39 million in revenue, according to court filings. The devices have generally been sold at just under $400 apiece and take only minutes to install.

Is a binary trigger a FRT trigger? ›

Unlike traditional triggers and binary triggers (sometimes referred to generally as “FRTs”), the subject FRTs do not require shooters to pull and then subsequently release the trigger to fire a second shot.

Ableman found that the Constitution gave the Supreme Court final authority to determine the extent and limits of federal power and that the states therefore do not have the power to nullify federal law. The Civil War put an end to most nullification attempts.

State With Strictest Gun Laws

California and New Jersey are the states that have the strictest gun laws in the nation, scoring both A on the Giffords gun law scorecard. California requires a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases, as well as a thorough background check for all gun purchasers.

Through 2010, resolutions have been introduced in the legislatures of 27 states that would nullify federal authority over such local firearms. The legislation passed in Montana and Tennessee in 2009 and in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming the following year.

The forced-reset trigger introduced by Rare Breed Triggers in late 2020 has been deemed an illegal machine gun by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ATF says the trigger can make an AR-15-style rifle fire as fast as a military M-16 machine gun.

The law on this matter is crystal clear. Devices that are designed to convert semi-automatic firearms to fire automatically, so-called “auto switches,” “Glock switches,” etc., are illegal throughout the U.S.

Functionality: FRT focuses on the reset phase of the trigger to expedite follow-up shots, while a binary trigger introduces a specific firing mode where two shots are fired with a single trigger pull and release.