Justice Department Settles Lawsuits, Allowing Sales of Rapid-Fire Trigger Devices

The Department of Justice has agreed to settle a lawsuit challenging its classification of some rapid-fire trigger devices, known as forced-reset triggers, as machine gun parts. On May 16, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department had agreed to discontinue its legal battles with Rare Breed Triggers, a company producing some of these forced-reset trigger products. “This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” Bondi said in a Friday press statement. “And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety.” Existing federal law defines a machine gun as “any weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” Machine guns are strictly regulated, and those convicted of possessing unregistered machine guns may face sentences of up to 10 years in prison....