U.S. Department of Justice
A coalition of 16 Attorneys General, including Colorado’s Phil Weiser, is suing the Trump Administration over its official plans to distribute thousands of machine gun conversion devices (MCDs) into communities across the United States.
The suit involves Forced Reset Triggers (FRTs), modifications to semi-automatic weapons that allow for faster firing similar to military machine guns. Although the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) previously classified FRTs as illegal machine guns, ATF—under the directive of Trump Administration leadership—signed a settlement agreement in May promising to stop enforcing federal law against FRTs and to redistribute thousands of FRTs the ATF had previously seized.
In recent years, machine gun conversion devices like FRTs, which dramatically increase a firearm’s rate of fire, have been frequently used in violent crimes and mass shootings, worsening the gun violence epidemic in the United States. Firearms equipped with MCDs are able to exceed the rate of fire of many military machine guns, firing up to 20 bullets per second. ATF has noted a significant rise in the use of MCDs, leading to increasing incidents of machine-gun fire–up 1,400% from 2019 through 2021.
Since at least 1975, ATF has classified devices that operate similarly to FRTs as machine guns prohibited by federal law. FRT devices replace the standard trigger on a semi-automatic firearm to allow the shooter to maintain continuous fire with one trigger pull, similar to the operation of fully automatic weapons. Despite the prohibition, in recent years, ATF estimates that at least 100,000 FRTs have been distributed across the country. ATF’s records also establish that machine gun conversion devices, including FRTs, are showing up more often at crime scenes.
Multiple lawsuits seeking either to enforce or challenge the prohibition on FRTs were filed during the Biden Administration. A federal judge in New York agreed that FRTs are banned under federal law. A federal judge in Texas disagreed and held that FRTs do not qualify as machine guns under federal law, but that ruling was on appeal.
On May 16, the Trump Administration announced that it had settled these lawsuits—by ignoring the federal FRT prohibition. ATF agreed to abandon its enforcement actions and appeals; promised to stop enforcing the federal ban on machine guns against FRTs, even against individuals and sellers who were not parties to any of these lawsuits; and pledged to redistribute FRTs that it previously seized.
The AG lawsuit seeks to prevent the redistribution of FRTs because they are prohibited by U.S. law, which prohibits anyone from owning machine guns, including devices that convert firearms into automatic weapons. The lawsuit explains that the federal government cannot violate U.S. law, even when it tries to bury those violations in a settlement agreement.
“It’s hard enough for our local law enforcement officials to protect Colorado communities from gun violence without the federal government willfully ignoring the law,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “The law is clear: machine guns, and devices that turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, are illegal. We’re suing to stop the ATF and the administration from making our communities more dangerous by distributing thousands of devices that turn firearms into weapons of war. These weapons have no place in our communities, and I will continue to fight to keep Coloradans safe from gun violence.”
