Lawsuit by 15 States Targets DOJ’s Forced Reset Trigger Reversal

Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., sued the federal government over its promise to stop enforcing a Biden-era regulation on triggers that can replicate fully automatic fire and return devices seized under the rule.

Returning thousands of seized “forced reset trigger” devices goes against both federal and state gun laws and poses “irreversible” harms to the states by threatening public safety and driving up law enforcement and health care costs, the states claimed in a complaint filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

Forced reset trigger devices cause a firearm to maintain continuous fire after one trigger pull. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 2021 began classifying FRTs as machine guns under federal law, effectively banning the accessory, and took steps to seize FRTs across the country.

As of August, ATF had nearly 12,000 FRTs in its possession, the complaint says.

The National Association for Gun Rights Inc. and other gun advocates in July last year convinced a Texas federal judge to strike the expanded machine gun definition, which the government appealed.

But last month, the government entered into a settlement agreement—which also resolves two other pending lawsuits over the rule—and states the government won’t enforce any statute or agency interpretation under which an FRT “is contended to be a ‘machinegun.’”

The government also agreed to return FRTs seized or voluntarily surrendered “to the extent practicable” in response to any request received by Sept. 30. But the states, who are suing all parties on the settlement agreement, argue ATF’s “longstanding position” is that federal gun laws prohibit the distribution and possession of FRTs “because they convert firearms into machineguns,” which the agency hasn’t renounced.

Several states also have laws on the books prohibiting the distribution and possession of FRTs, but the settlement doesn’t include a carveout for those states. Redistributing the devices will cause states to “expend substantial resources” to confiscate them, a task that will be “difficult, if not impossible,” the complaint says.

The states also claim it’s “substantially likely” the redistribution will increase the use of FRTs in criminal incidents, leading to higher-casualty shootings. That, too, will impose additional law enforcement and health care costs.

Mass shootings require more emergency response resources. And in rural communities where hospitals aren’t equipped to provide that level of care, “there will be increased mortality rates as critical patients overwhelm hospital resources and are forced to wait until they can be transported to a larger hospital,” the states assert.

The states allege the government’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, and are ultra vires. They’re seeking an order vacating and prohibiting the government from implementing or enforcing the broad redistribution policy by returning FRTs to any individual, distributor, or seller in the plaintiff states.

The ATF, Department of Justice, and other named defendants didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is State of N.J. v. Bondi, D. Md., No. 1:25-cv-01807, complaint filed 6/9/25.