a day ago
States sue Trump administration to prevent use of rapid-fire gun device
More than a dozen states sued the Trump administration Monday over its controversial decision to end a ban on firearms accessories known as forced reset triggers that enable weapons to fire more rapidly.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland, opposes the administration's recent decision to change a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives decision to classify the devices as machine guns. The classification effectively made them illegal, and federal officials and gun control advocates said that banning them would make the country safer.
The lawsuit seeks to block the redistribution of thousands of devices back to their original owners.
The Trump administration in May decided to settle litigation around the forced reset triggers and allow gunowners to possess the devices. Under the terms of the settlement, the devices would be legal so long as their manufacturer refrains from developing similar devices for pistols and enforces its patents to stop copycats. The federal government said it would return around 12,000 devices that were confiscated during the Biden administration.
The Democratic attorneys general of 15 states and D.C. said in their lawsuit Monday that the settlement was reckless and that the devices are too dangerous to be on the streets. Most of the states that filed the lawsuit have laws that ban the conversion devices.
The attorneys general also said that the Trump administration's settlement does not appear to prevent the devices from being returned to people who live in states where the devices are banned.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
'It is one of the most insane things I've seen in my more than two decades involved in the gun violence prevention movement,' New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, who is leading the lawsuit, said in an interview. 'If anyone is going to put thousands of machine guns on the streets, I don't care if you are a gun trafficker or the federal government, I am going to stop it.'
Gun control advocates had quickly lambasted the settlement, warning that it could lead to a rise in gun fatalities.
Congress has long banned machine guns in the country and, before the May settlement, the federal government explained in court filings that forced reset triggers are akin to machine guns because they allow a gun to automatically expel more than one shot by a single, continuous pull of the trigger. Gun rights advocates dispute that the devices transform other weapons into fully automatic machine guns.
The devices are often used by drug traffickers and gang members, and the attorneys general said in the lawsuit that they have seen an increase of people in their states using the devices while committing crimes. They predicted that the proliferation would drive up gun violence and argued in their lawsuit that it would cost state taxpayers significant money, with gun violence stretching law enforcement and health-care resources.
'It is substantially likely that the Redistribution Policy will lead to the increased use of [forced reset triggers,] including in criminal incidents,' the lawsuit states. 'Plaintiff States must respond to such incidents with greater resources to investigate the criminal incident, including more senior and specially trained personnel to process the scene, more evidence analysis, and more forensic investigation by medical examiners.'
The decision to settle the lawsuit with the manufacturer of forced reset triggers was controversial within the Trump administration. The Washington Post reported last month that Rob Leider — the ATF general counsel who the Trump administration picked for the job — believed that the devices were dangerous and the classification as machine guns should stand. Many longtime ATF staffers, who tend to be conservative-leaning gun owners, also thought forced reset triggers represent a significant public safety threat and should remain off-limits.
After heated meetings about the fate of the devices, the Trump administration overruled the ATF leaders and settled the lawsuit.
The Trump administration has loosened some gun regulations, including rescinding a Biden-era gun policy that canceled the federal licenses of firearm dealers if they intentionally falsified records or sold weapons without running a background check.
The administration has also said it would examine the framework of two other Biden-era gun regulations: one that required more checks on people who purchase stabilizing braces — an accessory that effectively transforms pistols into more deadly rifles — and another that required more sellers to get federal licenses and conduct background checks.
