New Jersey and 15 other anti-gun state governments are suing the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), Texas Gun Rights (TGR), Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), ATF Acting Director Daniel P. Driscol, Rare Breed Triggers, and the named plaintiffs in NAGR v. Garland. The states seek to block the returns of forced reset triggers (FRT) to their owners that the ATF confiscated under former ATF head Steve Dettlebach.
Last month, the DOJ settled a case after a Texas United States District Court judge ruled that FRTs are not machine guns. The settlement resulted in all lawsuits against Rare Breed Triggers being dropped nationwide, and all triggers confiscated by the ATF to be returned to their owners. The 16 states attempted to intervene in the case, but the courts rebuffed their effort. Now, those same states are trying to get a preliminary injunction to block the return of the triggers to their rightful owners.
The complaint starts by listing the number of deaths from firearms and calls violence with firearms an “epidemic.” None of the statistics involve FRTs. The states appear to try to equate FRTs with gun deaths. They also provide monetary figures that they claim gun-related crimes cost cities.
According to the states, FRTs are machinegun conversion devices (MCD) and use crimes committed with Glock switches in their complaints, trying to conflate the two devices. Glock switches function as MCDs, whereas FRTs do not.
An FRT speeds up the rate of fire but does not act as an MCD. According to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), an MCD is a device that converts a semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun. The legal definition of a machinegun is a gun that expels multiple rounds with a single function of a trigger. An FRT does not meet that definition. Only a single round is fired by a single function of the trigger. That distinction means that a firearm equipped with an FRT is still a semiautomatic firearm, no matter the rate of fire.
The states also complain about the number of hours the ATF committed to seizing triggers from gun owners. The suit claims that 16 to 24 hours of law enforcement time were used for each trigger confiscation. The plaintiffs do not cite any legal precedent that suggests an item illegally confiscated after an extended period doesn’t have to be returned. The plaintiffs also reference new laws in states that ban FRTs. They claimed that if the federal government doesn’t ban them, it will cost the states extra money to enforce state laws. The states have traditionally borne the cost of enforcing state laws, so that these laws would be no different.
The complaint reads: “Because the distribution of FRTs into many Plaintiff States will violate state laws, those States will incur greater law enforcement costs from having to enforce their prohibitions on the sale, distribution, and possession of FRTs or FRT-equipped firearms. This case includes the substantial cost of retrieving FRTs or FRT-equipped firearms that are distributed or possessed in violation of state law. As noted above, ATF’s own evidence indicates that each FRT retrieval takes approximately 16 to 24 hours of law enforcement time.”
The case is on shaky ground, to begin with. The legal statute challenged is 18 USC 922, a criminal statute that does not constitute a civil cause of action, which is the exact action the states are trying to achieve. Additionally, the lawsuit is a challenge under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The APA does not and has never applied to legal settlements.
The states are attempting to use the APA to invalidate the settlement, which would be the first time in the country’s history that this has been done. By the letter of the law, this case should be dismissed, but the plaintiffs seemed to have “judge-shopped.”
The plaintiffs are suing in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. This choice isn’t random. This District Court is one of, if not the most liberal, courts in the country. Some claim that Judge Paula Xinis, who oversees this court, is a judicial activist, and there is ample evidence to support this claim. The Judge is the same Judge who ordered the return of suspected gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States. Mr. Abrego Garcia is currently being charged with human trafficking and has been tied to the violent Salvadoran street gang, MS-13.
With the Judge in the case, a slam-dunk win for the defendants might not be so cut and dry, but in the end, the plaintiffs should win what many are calling a harassment lawsuit.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
