Hoffman Tactical has an interesting new design for an AR-pattern firearm part. It’s the Super Safety Active Trigger System.
Basically, it’s a 3D-printed crossbolt safety, instead of the familiar rotating lever. I actually kinda like crossbolt safeties, and might be interested in trying this on an AR just to see if I could get used to it (after forty plus years of M-16s and AR-pattern semiautos).
But that’s not really the truly fascinating part of the Super Safety; it’s the “active trigger system” aspect.
This might sound like a digression, but it isn’t. You may recall the Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15, the forced reset trigger loathed and banned by ATF determination. Pull the trigger, fire a round, and the bolt moving forward again actively forces the trigger to reset forward. If you maintain trigger pressure after firing (rather than manually releasing the trigger), you can immediately press the trigger, firing quite rapidly. It isn’t something I need, but for expensive range fun and certain specialized field situations, it could be handy. The ATF naturally –being the unconstitutional scumbags they are — immediately “determined” that the FRT-15, and other similar devices are machineguns. And, oops, manufactured after May 1986, so no forced reset devices for you. The ATF applied the same pseudo-logic from their bump stock ban, where they redefine “single operation of the trigger” to actually mean “single manual, volitional movement of the finger.”
That wasn’t a digression because Hoffman Tactical’s Super Safety has three switch positions: safe, ready… and right in the middle… forced reset. Yep, albeit with a different mechanism, it can accomplish the same trigger reset as the FRT-15.
You might be wondering why this isn’t covered by the same FRT-15 rule that the ATF used to go after Rare Breed Triggers and Wide-Open Triggers.
There is no such rule. The ATF used a mere “determination letter.” Tim, at Hoffman Tactical noted, “The ATF has not made a proper regulatory determination in regards to forced reset triggers. If that changes, then our intentions may be altered.”
To shut down the Super Safety, the ATF — using their current process — would need to obtain a Super Safety, inspect it, and determine that it specifically is a “machinegun.” Just like they did to Rare Breed.
At which point, Hoffman Tactical need only not 3D-print a Super Safety, leaving the ATF to redefine itself as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, and Computer Code. Which hasn’t gone well for the the feds in their fight with Defense Distributed over Ghost Gunner CNC mill computer code.
Or the ATF could just keep blasting out individual determination letters, like shot from a shotgun, every time someone clever comes up with yet another forced rest system. At which time, the innovators just generate yet another forced reset system (I’m thinking a modified bolt carrier group). Lather, rinse, repeat.
Alternatively, the ATF could promulgate another rule generally declaring any forced reset device to be a machinegun, and go after the smart folks automatically. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the ATF can legally make any such regulatory determination. That would require legislative action, not fiats from bureaucrats (FRT-15, unfinished frames/receivers, pistol braces, bump stocks, open-bolt semi-autos, etc). Thus far, the ATF has been relying on Chevron deference to get away with reinterpreting laws for its own benefit.
Right now, Chevron deference is in serious trouble. And several courts are noting that Chevron deference is only supposed to apply to civil law, not criminal law with criminal penalties. If LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO tosses deference, then a large swath of ATF rules will be ripe for toppling.
Would the ATF then simply go back to individual determination letters? (At least they might be too busy with paperwork to kick in doors and stomp kittens.)The fact is that even determination letters of the sort used for forced rest, bumpstocks, and pistol braces still rely on deference to allow them to redefine words.
Deference is on thin ice. It is used by courts to “defer” to bureaucrats in cases where the law is so vague that even the court can’t decide what the devil the lawmakers were trying to do; so they leave it up to the unelected bureaucrats. That’s lazy, and that’s wrong.
If a statute really is that vague, then it is unconstitutionally vague and must be voided. If the statute is clear, then the bureaucrats have no business “interpreting” it, to expand their power.
It’s a binary solution set: Either the law means exactly what it says, no more, no less; or the law is void for vagueness.
The ATF might find it a little harder to make “determinations” that your neat gadget violates an unconstitutional and voided law.
I wish Hoffman Tactical the best in the inevitable legal conflict with the ATF goons.
