ATF Hit With Major Lawsuit

The ATF has come under fire from the arms industry over its many regulations and rules but one rule and its enforcement in particular has inspired one company to sue.

The ATF rule on machine guns is almost impossible for normal people to wrap their heads around. In the past the ATF has ruled that shoestrings are machine guns, this is because a shoestring was used to bump fire from a rifle and increase its rate of fire. What is and isn’t a machine gun is highly subjective under the ATF’s rules, one company is now suing because at first their product wasn’t a machine gun but now it is.

Rare Breed Triggers had 4 ATF agents take a look at it’s FRT-15 trigger and they all gave it the go ahead, they said that it did not meet the agency’s definition of a machine gun. Rare Breed Triggers was hit with a cease and desist letter, this letter claimed that the FRT-15 trigger allowed for multiple rounds to be fired with a single trigger pull and that it was therefore a machine gun.

The ATF alleges that their analysis of the component, something they have yet to release to either the public or Rare Breed Triggers, shows that this part matches the definition of a machine gun. Rare Breed Triggers has released the details of how this component works, they show that this part ensures that the firearm requires one trigger pull per round, and the company has 4 ATF agents who have already said that the part does not meet the definition of a machine gun. 

You can read the letters from 2 of the original ATF agents that cleared Rare Breed Triggers accessory over at The Infidel.

An emergency hearing will take place for the case sometime this week, US District Judge Carlos Mendoza will be hearing this case. Mendoza is a Barack Obama appointee but should be relatively fair in this case because he is also a former Marine who served in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Rare Breed Triggers have a very strong case and if they are to win their case this could have major impacts on other accessories that have been banned under the guise that they are machine guns.