Justice Department deal ends a ban on an aftermarket trigger. Gun control advocates are alarmed

Justice Department deal ends a ban on an aftermarket trigger. Gun control
advocates are alarmed

By  ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration will allow the sale of forced-reset
triggers, which make semiautomatic rifles fire more rapidly, with the federal
government ending a 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.

https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-guns-forced-reset-triggers-c7e5e6ee65171c50c10d4384dd181fec