NJ sues to stop Trump administration from giving back ‘machine guns’

🔴 Devices allow firearms to shoot like they're full auto

🔴 The "forced reset triggers" had been seized by the federal authorities

🔴 The Trump administration plans to give 12,000 of them back to their owners

TRENTON — A coalition of 16 attorneys general, led by New Jersey, is suing the Trump administration to stop a plan that would redistribute thousands of devices that make semi-automatic firearms shoot hundreds of rounds per minute.

On Monday, Attorney General Matt Platkin said the plan to give the devices, called forced reset triggers, back to their owners poses a danger to public safety.

Forced reset triggers are aftermarket products for semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15. It allows the gun to shoot at up to 900 rounds per minute, Platkin said.

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"This unfathomable power serves one purpose: to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible," Platkin said.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Maryland. Attorneys general for Delaware and Maryland are also leading the legal action.

Why are forced reset triggers legal?

While mechanically different from bump stocks, they both allow firearms to shoot much faster. Unlike bump stocks, forced reset triggers require the user to manually pull the trigger for each shot.

In 2018, Trump directed the Justice Department to ban bump stocks in response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

Subsequently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulated bump stocks as "machine guns," which are illegal under federal law.

Forced reset triggers had been treated the same way with the same "machine gun" label.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Cargill v. Garland last year that the ATF overstepped its authority in defining a bump stock as a machine gun.

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A lower court applied that ruling to forced reset triggers, leading to May's settlement with Rare Breed Triggers.

The settlement allows the company, which manufactures and sells the devices online, to keep selling its products as long as it does not manufacture the aftermarket triggers for handguns.

Settlement to give back forced reset triggers

The other major part of the settlement was that the ATF must give back forced reset triggers that were seized or voluntarily given up.

“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi last month.

Platkin said around 12,000 of the devices would be redistributed to their owners.

However, he said the aftermarket triggers would inevitably end up in the hands of criminals.

"Could it be violent felons? Of course. Could it be domestic abusers? Of course. Could it be people who will sell to violent felons and domestic abusers? Of course," Platkin said.

According to a 2022 CNN report, modified triggers were behind a 1,400% increase in incidents involving automatic fire from 2019 through 2021.

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