Press Release: 2025-01-17

AG Campbell Defends Federal Ban On Forced Reset Triggers

 

Coalition Argues FRTs Create Military-Style Machineguns and Pose Great Security Risk 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

1/17/2025

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Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary

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Call Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary at (617) 727-2543

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Email Sydney Heiberger, Press Secretary at Sydney.Heiberger@mass.gov

BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has joined with attorneys general from 15 other states to defend the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) decision to prohibit “Forced Reset Triggers” (FRTs) to protect residents nationwide. This filing is made in anticipation of the incoming Trump Administration’s abandonment of this important federal policy.

The coalition’s intervention motion will act to protect communities from military-style machine guns in light of the risk that the Trump Administration will stop defending this policy, allowing FRTs to threaten public safety nationwide. As the states’ motion explains, any decision to allow FRTs under federal law would increase their spread across the country and heighten the risk of additional mass casualty events.

FRTs make it possible for individuals to illegally convert their firearms into fully automatic weapons with the firepower of a military machine gun. In recent years, machine gun conversion devices (MCDs) like FRTs 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 machineguns, firing up to 20 bullets in one second. ATF has noted a significant rise in the use of MCDs. In fact, the Department of Justice found that recoveries of MCDs increased by 784% between 2019 and 2023.

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 semiautomatic 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, at least 100,000 FRTs have been distributed across the country.

In 2024, a federal judge in Texas held that FRTs do not qualify as machine guns and issued a court order prohibiting ATF from taking criminal or civil enforcement actions regarding FRTs. The judge ordered ATF to return FRTs to distributors by February 22, 2025. The United States appealed that decision, and the parties are awaiting a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

This motion is AG Campbell’s latest effort to combat the nationwide gun violence epidemic. In November 2023, AG Campbell launched the Gun Violence Prevention Unit (GVPU), allowing the AG’s Office to strengthen the state’s nation-leading commonsense gun laws. In January 2025, Everytown for Gun Safety compared the strength of each state’s gun laws with its rate of gun violence and released a report ranking Massachusetts as the safest state in the nation with the second safest gun laws overall. 

This matter was handled by Deputy State Solicitor Anna Lumelsky and Gun Violence Protection Unit Deputy Director Ryan Mingo. 

Joining AG Campbell in this motion, led by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, were the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illionois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.