On July 23, 2024, Federal District Judge Reed O’Connor of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted summary judgment against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and struck down the ATF’s rule that classified “force reset triggers” (“FRT”) as devices that covert semi-automatic firearms into machineguns. See, National Association of Gun Rights, Inc., et al., v. Merrick Garland, et al. Northern District of Texas, 4:23-cv-00830-O (opinion below).
The Court noted that in 2018 the ATF attempted to broaden the statutory definition of a machinegun by adopted a regulation by adding to the regulatory definition the following: “For purposes of this definition, the term “automatically” as it modifies “shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot,” means functioning as the result of a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that allows the firing of multiple rounds through a single function of the trigger; and “single function of the trigger” means a single pull of the trigger and analogous motions. The term “machine gun” includes a bump-stock-type device, i.e., a device that allows a semi-automatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semi-automatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the
trigger by the shooter.” See, 27 C.F.R§ 479.11 (2018). By 2021, the ATF was applying this expanded definition to classified devices, like FRTs, to declare such devices, if made after May 1986, as machineguns and prohibited from civilian possession.
In addressing the legal issues before it, the Court relied specifically on the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Garland v. Cargill, 602 U.S. 406 (2024). In Cargill, the Supreme Court struck down the ATF’s rule that classified bumpstocks as devices that converted semi-automatic firearms to machineguns. In doing so, Judge O’Connor concluded:
Because the Cargill decisions from the en banc Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court are squarely dispositive of the issue in this case, the Court concludes that ATF’s regulation is not in accord with the statutory definition of “machinegun.” By redefining the statutory definition, the ATF exceeded the scope of its authority. Upon determining that an agency’s action is unlawful, that “agency action must be set aside if the action was ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law’ or if the action failed to meet statutory, procedural, or constitutional requirements.” Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, 401 U.S. at 413–14 (1971) (citing 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)–(D)).
NAGR v. Garland, pp. 47-48.
The Court issued a detailed set of orders in its conclusion to which reference to the Opinion itself should be made. Key parts of the holding include i) vacating the ATF’s unlawful classification of FRTs as machineguns and ii) declaring unlawful ATF’s determination that FRTs are machineguns. There are other provisions of the Court’s order that only apply to the parties, including the organizational parties and their members (National Association of Gun Rights and Texas Gun Rights, Inc.).
As we have reported in other instances, it is now a necessity that we as citizens must resort to the courts, state and federal, to strike down or limit statutes, regulations and executive orders because our state and federal elected legislators have and continue repeatedly to fail us under their oaths to defend and protect our constitutional rights. Indeed, in many instances, such as some of the laws that passed (and failed to pass) in Tennessee in the last 14 years, it is actually the legislatures that are the problem rather than the solution when it comes to fully restoring our constitutional rights.
You can help in the necessity of bringing more of these types of cases to the courts by joining the Tennessee Firearms Association, by making supplemental member donations to the TFA and/or by making tax deductible donations to the Tennessee Firearms Foundation which dedicates some of its funds to public interest litigation.
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