Justice Department Deal Ends Ban on Aftermarket Trigger

The Trump administration will allow the sale of forced-reset triggers, which make semiautomatic rifles fire more rapidly, with the federal government ending a long-standing ban as part of a settlement that also requires it to return seized devices.

The agreement announced Friday by the Justice Department resolves a series of cases over the aftermarket trigger that the government had previously argued qualify as machine guns under federal law. The settlement is a dramatic shift in Second Amendment policy under the Republican administration, which has signaled it may undo many of the regulations that the previous administration of Democratic President Joe Biden had fought to keep in place in an effort to curb gun violence.

“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Gun control advocates said the settlement would worsen gun violence.

“The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions,” said Vanessa Gonzalez, vice president of government and political affairs at GIFFORDS, a gun control group.

There had been several legal battles over forced-reset triggers, which replace the typical trigger on an AR-15-style rifle. The government for years had argued they are essentially illegal machine gun conversion devices because constant finger pressure on the triggers will keep a rifle firing essentially like an automatic.

The deal announced Friday was between the Justice Department and Rare Breed Triggers, which was previously represented by David Warrington, Trump’s current White House counsel. Rare Breed Triggers argued that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was wrong in its classification and ignored demands to stop selling the triggers before being sued by the Biden administration.

“This victory is a landmark moment in the fight against unchecked government overreach,” Lawrence DeMonico, the group's president, said in a statement. “The ATF and DOJ tried to silence and bury us not because we broke the law, but because I refused to bend to the will of a tyrannical administration.”

Under the settlement, Rare Breed Triggers has agreed not to develop such devices to be used on handguns, according to the Justice Department. The settlement requires the ATF to return triggers that it had seized or that owners had voluntarily surrendered to the government.