Rare Breed Triggers | The Zelman Partisans

I recently noted that the ATF has deemed the FRT-15 semiautomatic trigger is a machinegun. Rare Breed Triggers president Lawrence DeMonico is pushing back.

In this video, Mr. DeMonico explains what the ATF did, why Rare Breed knows they are wrong — on so many levels — and what Rare Breed is doing to fight back.

Before going to market, they took the FRT-15 to four separate subject matter experts, who all, independently said the trigger was semiautomatic. Personally, in terms of the language of the law, I think it’s a no-brainer since very point of the trigger is that it forces a reset absolutely requiring the user to pull the trigger once again before it will fire.

Of course, the ATF is not using the actual language of 26 U.S. Code § 5845:

(b)Machinegun
The term “machinegun” means any weapon which 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. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.

The ATF has adopted a new definition of “function of the trigger” to mean “volitional movement of the finger.” Read that. Do you see “volitional”, “movement,” or “finger” in there anywhere?

And even that is remarkably stupid, even for an agency that thinks inanimate pieces of plastic are machineguns. One more time: The FRT-15 forces a reset and requires the user to consciously and manual pull the trigger again to fire. At least with a bump-fire stock, the finger could passively sit on the ledge, while the user — consciously and manually operates the action with his off-arm.

I assumed that Rare Breed Triggers would file a lawsuit. In the video, Mr. DeMonico confirms that a suit has been filed. Once I knew that, and in which court, it took me approximately 10 seconds to find it; and most of that time was spent typing search terms. The case is Rare Breed Triggers, LLC et al v. Garland et al.

This case is going to be fun to watch. For one Mr. DeMonico pulls no punches. For another…

There’s the matter of his subject matter experts. They were… the ATF’s subject matter experts. One literally wrote the ATF’s academy course on machinegun identification. Another taught the course in machinegun identification.

Those people are going to walk into court, present their prior-ATF credentials, and explain that the FRT-15 is semiautomatic.

The ATF is going to walk into court and tell the judge and jury that fingers are triggers.

Please note that only one person had been charged with unlawful possession of a bump-fire stock machinegun. When defense showed up with an expert witness who said bump-fire stocks are not machineguns, the prosecution dropped the charge, rather than try to tell the judge and jury that fingers are triggers.

This case won’t be in a Ninth Circuit court. The judge is probably going to be pounding his gavel and demanding order when everyone cracks up laughing.

Last year, Rare Breed Triggers introduced their FRT-15 trigger. It’s an innovative device that helps the user of an AR-pattern firearm to fire rapidly. Specifically, the sear forces a reset of the trigger without the operator having to release finger pressure from the trigger. Thus, you maintain pressure, the trigger resets with each shot, and the continuously applied finger pressure operates the trigger again. Clever.

Clever, until the ATF got around to deciding that bump-fire stocks are machineguns, thanks to the devious way they redefined “function of the trigger” really means operation of the finger.

How can the courts rule that “function of the trigger” means volitional movement of a finger? And yet, they have.

In correspondence with Rare Breed Triggers at the time, I wrote:

“I’ve just watched your Vimeo video about the FRT trigger. I must admit, as I watched the animation explaining the operation, all that went through my head was, “My god, they’ve invented the bump TRIGGER. The ATF is going to go nuts.”

The ATF did.

In the new, Trump-induced way of viewing the finger as a firearm component, the simple fact that you still had to manually operate the trigger, means squat. The ATF has classified the FRT-15 trigger as a machinegun.

I warned that the bump-fire precedent was dangerous. And got laughed at. It’s just about a silly toy that no one needs. It doesn’t have anything to do with my stuff. Folks didn’t want to die on “bump stock hill,” when they could put forth their resources towards more important things.

And bump-fire stocks got banned. Now it’s the FRT-15. I expect binary triggers — triggers that fire the firearm on both the pull and the reset — to be next.

Finally, as was attempted in Nevada, the ATF — having decided that bump-fire stocks, forced reset triggers, binary triggers, drop-in autosears, and lightning links are so simple to install in AR-platform firearms that the entire class is “easily converted into machineguns. Meaning they are machineguns, and So sorry; you didn’t register those machineguns before May 1986, so they’re banned. Turn ’em in or go to prison.

Don’t expect to be offered compensation either. That was another bump-fire precedent. We aren’t going to compensate owners who broke the — newly redefined — law.

I’ve been accused of nitpicking, for worrying about obscure rules, laws, and judicial rulings. This is why I do that.