ATF Requested Stay Denied in Force Reset Trigger Case

Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor for the Northern District of Texas denied the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) request for a stay on his ruling that blocked the ATF from taking enforcement actions over force reset triggers (FRT).

Earlier, Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the ATF exceeded its authority when it determined that FRTs were machine guns in the National Association for Gun Rights v. Garland. FRTs use the bolt carrier group (BCG) of an AR-15-style firearm to reset the trigger of the gun. This reset allows the shooter to increase the rate of fire of a firearm. The ATF claimed that since the rate of fire approaches that of a machine gun, it made the device a machine gun conversion device. Under federal law, any device that converts a semi-automatic firearm to a machine gun is itself a machine gun.

Machine guns are defined under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The actual law doesn’t reference a fire rate when determining a machine gun. According to the law, a machine gun fires multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger. An FRT doesn’t work that way. A firearm equipped with an FRT expels one round per trigger function. The ATF made the same argument about bump stocks in the Cargill case, but the Supreme Court ruled against the government and stated that bump stocks were not machine guns.

The statute reads: “For the purposes of the National Firearms Act the term Machinegun means: 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.”

The plaintiffs claim that since an FRT requires that the user pull the trigger between each round, it could not be considered a machine gun. In the past, the ATF tried to use Chevron deference to change the meaning of a law, but because of the recent Supreme Court opinion in the Loper Bright Enterprises case, Chevron deference is dead. Chevron deference says when a law is unclear or ambiguous, the agency of authority has the final say as to the law’s meaning. This decision stripped the ATF of using Chevron deference in this case, even though it probably would not have been successful.

The ATF tried to use Chevron deference in the Cargill case, but SCOTUS rejected that tactic, stating that the definition of a machine gun is not unclear or ambiguous. Chances are high that the court would come to the same conclusion in this case. The ATF claimed that not issuing a stay would cause irreparable harm to public safety. The judge rejected the argument, saying that the only people charged with having an FRT were also charged with other crimes, so possessing an FRT was only an “add-on” crime. He also stated he did not believe that the defense was likely to succeed on the merits of the case.

The judge extended the time frame the ATF has to return the approximately 11,884 Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15s and Wide Open Triggers (WOT) it had confiscated from owners. Initially, Judge O’Connor gave the ATF 30 days to return all the triggers it confiscated from gun owners. The ATF went door to door to seize the triggers from owners but stated it could not return them in 30 days. The judge increased the time of the deadline by five months. The ATF now has six months to return all the triggers to their owners.

“For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Defendants’ Motion to Stay Judgment Pending Appeal (ECF No. 104),” the order reads. “The Court grants Defendants an additional SIX (6) MONTHS to comply with the affirmative obligation, which SHALL be completed by February 22, 2025. This extension does NOT apply to the Individual Plaintiffs or members of the Organizational Plaintiffs who specifically request the return of their FRT devices and provide sufficient documentation to the ATF. ATF shall return those as soon as is practicable following the specific request.”

The ATF is appealing the judge’s decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, although since this is the same court that ruled against the ATF in Cargill, it seems like a long shot that they will side with the ATF. The arguments in both cases are almost identical.