Sixteen states have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its plan to permit the sale of forced-reset triggers (FRTs). The triggers are a type of firearm mechanism that allows a rifle shooter to fire at a much faster rate than a firearm equipped with a standard semi-automatic trigger.
The federal government’s plan also includes returning the specialty triggers that had already been voluntarily confiscated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authorities, effectively reversing a policy implemented during the Biden administration.
The states are asking a federal judge in Maryland to issue a preliminary injunction. The attorneys general argue that the triggers undermine public safety and increase vulnerability to mass shootings.
Legal and regulatory history of FRTs
Under the Biden administration, the ATF determined that installing one of these triggers converts a legal semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun by allowing continuous firing with a single pull of the trigger. The ATF classified them as machine guns under federal law.
Rare Breed Triggers, the manufacturer of the device, disagreed with that classification. According to the manufacturer, the triggers are a firearm component designed for use in semi-automatic weapons that facilitates a significantly faster rate of fire. It works by mechanically resetting the trigger after each shot while still requiring a separate trigger pull for every round fired.
The company argued that its component does not meet the legal definition of a machine gun and continued selling its product until the Biden administration filed a lawsuit in 2023. In the complaint, the federal government asserted, “The FRT-15 is itself a machinegun under federal law.”
Court decisions and settlement
In May 2025, the Trump administration reached a settlement in the federal lawsuit against Rare Breed Triggers. As part of the resolution, the government cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Cargill v. Garland, issued in June 2024. That decision held that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority when it issued a rule classifying bump stocks as machine guns.
Following that precedent, in July 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas applied the ruling to the specialty triggers. The court concluded that they do not fall within the legal definition of a machine gun, according to the Justice Department.
Under the National Firearms Act, a machine gun is defined as any “weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”
Company response and safety commitments
As part of the settlement, Rare Breed agreed not to develop or design forced-reset triggers for use in pistols and committed to enforcing its patents to help prevent unsafe or unauthorized versions from entering the market.
The states involved in the lawsuit are Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia.
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Author: Cole Lauterbach
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