ATF’s Flawed Case Against FRT Triggers: Has ATF Already Lost with Their Losing Argument? - Ammoland.com

 NAGR’s Hannah Hill recently pointed out a critical flaw in the ATF’s legal strategy as it tries to defend its position in the Forced Reset Trigger (FRT) case.

In her words, “if the trigger is being engaged multiple times, you’ve conceded that it’s more than one function of the trigger.”

That single observation sums up why the ATF is once again facing an uphill battle in court. Despite already losing six times on this issue, the ATF is trying to reframe its argument—an approach that’s unlikely to hold up.

At the heart of the case is the same question that plagued the ATF’s bump stock ban: how does federal law define a “machinegun”?

The ATF’s oral argument hinges on trying to equate the movements of the shooter’s finger with the mechanical function of the trigger. As Hill points out, the courts—especially the Fifth Circuit—have already rejected this kind of reasoning. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Cargill v. Garland made it clear: the definition of a machine gun revolves around the mechanical function of the trigger, not the shooter’s hand or finger movements.

Shelby Baird Smith, emphasized this very point in the wake of the Cargill decision, stating that the Supreme Court’s ruling “held that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock does not qualify as a machinegun…such a rifle cannot fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger.’” (Cargill Decision Against ATF Demonstrates Textualism in Action).

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