The ATF recently sent out a new round of letters to purchasers of the FRT-15 trigger, claiming it is a machine gun conversion device. That means that any firearm equipped with the FRT-15 now falls under the National Firearms Act of 1934.
This designates equipment designed to convert a weapon to fully automatic is classified and subject to the same laws as the machine gun itself.
Because no machine guns manufactured after 1986 may be added to the national registry, the forced reset triggers are therefore illegal to own. According to the ATF.
These devices cause the trigger to reset after each shot, increasing the fire rate of the weapon. The point of contention is the actual result of modifying a weapon with the forced reset trigger. The ATF claims the gun now fires automatically with a single trigger pull.
Rare Breed Triggers counters that the shooter pulls the trigger to fire each round, resulting in the weapon not fitting the federal definition of a machine gun.
The ATF served Rare Breed Triggers with a cease-and-desist letter in July 2021. Just over a year later, before the ensuing court cases were settled, the agency began confiscating the devices from purchasers. Agents began knocking on doors of gun owners who purchased the FRT-15 triggers.
The current letter campaign tells gun owners that they must hand over their forced reset triggers acquired from Rare Breed Triggers. The company asserts the U.S. Postal Service handed over buyer information to the ATF without a warrant.
So far the ATF has not taken legal action against purchasers. The agency has only confiscated the triggers.
Meanwhile, the National Association for Gun Rights sued the ATF in August in federal court in Texas. The organization directly challenged the agency’s classification of the FRT-15 as a machine gun.
