ATF officially declares certain gun triggers ‘machine guns’

On Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), issued an open letter ruling that a type of gun trigger, known as a forced-reset trigger, will be considered a machinegun despite functioning differently than a true automatic machine gun.

The letter, dated March 22 and widely published Thursday, March 24, states the agency “recently examined devices commonly known as ‘forced reset triggers’ (FRTs) and has determined that some of them are ‘firearms’ and ‘machineguns’ as defined in the National Firearms Act (NFA), and ‘machineguns’ as defined in the Gun Control Act (GCA).”

A conventional trigger is one that, once fired, requires its user to release it before it can reset and be depressed to fire again. A forced-reset trigger is one that, once fired, automatically resets the trigger to the unfired position, whether it has been released or not. This action allows a user to more quickly fire subsequent rounds, but each shot still requires the trigger to be pulled.