Democrat-led states agreed to drop a lawsuit Thursday after the federal government said it would not send trigger devices, which can make semiautomatic firearms mimic machine guns, to people in states where the devices are banned by law.
The states covered are California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington. The District of Columbia is also covered by the agreement.
The conclusion of the lawsuit ends a long-running saga that saw the devices, officially known as forced-reset triggers, banned and seized by the feds. A federal judge intervened to nullify that, and the government then moved to return devices. The Democrat-led states moved to block that, saying the devices were still illegal under their own laws.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said during court proceedings that people who live in the covered states and the District, and who had forced-reset triggers taken away, either must abandon their claims or else agree to have the devices sent to a state where they are still legal.
Anyone who then took them from legal states to illegal states could face prosecution, Thursday’s court filing said.
The ATF said it was always going to abide by state law and not return the devices to residents where they are illegal.
Still, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, took a victory lap over the outcome.
“We are glad this legal action worked to stop these dangerous devices from entering our state,” Mr. Bonta said.
Forced reset triggers work as a sort of bypass on a semiautomatic weapon, using the firearm’s energy to rapidly maneuver the trigger back and forth, speeding the rate of fire to mimic an automatic weapon.
Automatic weapons are heavily regulated at the federal level and, for an average citizen, generally require the purchase of a weapon manufactured before 1986. That makes them prohibitively expensive.
Gun owners seeking to mimic that rate of fire have long looked for workarounds such as forced reset triggers, bump stocks and Glock switches.
That latter device can be made with a 3D printer.
Guns outfitted with switches have been implicated in some high-profile shootings in recent years, including one in Sacramento, California, in 2022 that saw a fight escalate into a gun battle, with six people slain.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that ATF did not enter into any settlement, and to clarify what a forced reset trigger is and to distinguish it from a Glock switch.
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