When a federal agency writes something down in a court filing, the word choice is rarely an accident. That’s why the filing discussed in the video above caught my attention, because it shows where the ATF stands on forced reset triggers. In a civil case, the agency stated it has an “interest in limiting the sale and distribution” of forced reset triggers, or FRTs. Not regulating. Limiting.
Quick introduction for new readers: I’m Lance Rankin, owner of Western Sport, an FFL and gunsmithing shop in Roanoke, Texas. Regulatory language is part of my job whether I like it or not, so posts like this are me reading the tea leaves out loud. Fair warning: this is dated commentary. The FRT fight has moved through multiple courts and settlements, so check the current status before you make any decisions based on what’s written here.
The ATF wants to limit forced reset triggers, not regulate them
The ATF is the federal firearms regulator. Overseeing how items are sold is its lane. But “limiting the sale and distribution” of an item is a different posture: it describes a goal of making something scarcer, not a process for supervising it. Layered on top of that, the same filing reminded the court that “the transfer or possession of a machine gun is illegal under federal law.” Read together, it’s hard not to hear the ATF saying it still considers forced reset triggers, and devices like them, to be machine guns, whatever the courts have said lately.
The Rare Breed backdrop
The filing came out of an unusual arrangement. The ATF and Rare Breed Triggers reached a settlement under which Rare Breed agreed to enforce its patents against companies selling copycat FRTs, and the government agreed to consider filing statements supporting Rare Breed’s injunction requests, spelling out the public interest served. So you have a patent dispute between private companies, with the federal regulator filing statements about why fewer of these triggers on the market serves the public. That’s a strange alliance, and plenty of observers read the settlement as a truce rather than a peace treaty. This filing supports that read.
Cargill is the elephant in the room
All of this happens in the shadow of Garland v. Cargill, where the Supreme Court held that bump stocks are not machine guns and that the ATF exceeded its authority in reclassifying them. The Court leaned on the statutory definition Congress wrote: a machine gun fires more than one shot with a single function of the trigger. After that ruling, you’d expect the agency to tread carefully around trigger devices. Instead, the machine gun language in this filing reads like a placeholder, a way of keeping the old position warm in case the political winds shift back.
What I take from it
Agencies don’t give up positions; they wait. That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s just how regulatory bodies behave, and gun owners have watched the cycle repeat with braces, bump stocks, and now forced reset triggers. An item is legal, then reclassified, then litigated, then maybe legal again, and the people holding the product bear the risk the whole way through.
My practical advice hasn’t changed: if you own or want any accessory that lives near the machine gun definition, keep receipts, keep records, and keep watching the litigation, because the ground can move under you between purchase and next range trip. As of this writing, forced reset triggers sit in exactly that kind of gray zone with the ATF. If you’re unsure where things stand, ask before you buy. I’d rather answer the question than sell you a problem. And if you’re shopping the conventional side of the market, the triggers and trigger parts I stock are all boringly legal. You can reach me at [email protected] or 817-393-4000.
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
