Pro-Gun Group Secures Big Win Over ATF In Federal Court

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A federal court on Tuesday struck down a ban imposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on reset triggers.

The ruling comes as the result of a lawsuit filed by The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR). U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor “vacated” the agency’s ban on the devices, arguing that it had overstepped its authority when it redefined forced reset triggers as machine guns, according to a press release from NAGR.

A forced reset trigger (FRT) is a firearm component that allows the trigger to reset more quickly than a regular trigger by forcing it back to its starting position after it is fired. The mechanism enables a shooter to fire multiple shots at a faster rate without converting the weapon into a fully automatic firearm.

The court’s ruling was influenced by the Supreme Court’s decision against the agency’s bump stock ban. (RELATED: HOOBER: There’s Probably A Word In German For That – ATF Bans A Trigger By Calling It A Machine Gun)

The ATF “engaged in unlawful agency action taken in excess of their authority,” according to the court’s ruling, emphasizing that they did so by “redefining the statutory definition” of a “machinegun.”

The judge asserted that FRTs do not meet the statutory definition of machine guns because a firearm equipped with the device “must still reset after each round is fired and must separately function to release the hammer by moving far enough to the rear in order to fire the next round.”

SUMMARY JUDGMENT!!! We just won summary judgment striking down the ATF’s forced reset trigger ban in a scathing 64-page ruling. I’ll drop some highlights below as I go thought it. This is a huge win!!! pic.twitter.com/Z2CwWky1KQ

— Hannah Hill (@hannahhill_sc) July 24, 2024

“For years, the Biden/Harris administration has rammed their gun control agenda through the ATF because they couldn’t get it through Congress,” Hannah Hill, Executive Director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, told the Daily Caller. “This ruling draws a line in the sand blocking the ATF’s overreach.”

“Gun control just got significantly harder for anti-gun presidents, because between this ruling and the Supreme Court’s Cargill decision, the ATF is being systematically defanged by the court system and forced to return to their Constitutional boundaries,” Hill added.