The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Rare Breed Triggers have agreed not to distribute or sell machine-gun conversion devices in Maryland and other plaintiff states following a multistate lawsuit led by Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown.
Per the news release distributed on Friday, July 11: “Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced that following his lawsuit, alongside a coalition of 16 attorneys general, the Trump administration has committed to carving out Maryland from its illegal plans to distribute thousands of machine-gun conversion devices (MCD) into communities across the United States.
In submissions made in the multistate litigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has expressly confirmed to a judge that it will not return Forced Reset Triggers (FRTs) into Maryland or the other plaintiff states. In addition, Rare Breed Triggers, the country’s largest purveyor of FRTs, has confirmed in its court filings that it will not sell any FRTs in Maryland or the other plaintiff states. As a result, the coalition is withdrawing its motion for a preliminary injunction, based on a notice that lays out these representations in detail.
“When our Office filed this lawsuit, we warned that thousands of forced reset triggers would flood our streets and leave Marylanders vulnerable to more senseless gun violence. Our case led the federal government to block their redistribution into Maryland and other states where they’re banned,” said Attorney General Brown. “This victory protects Maryland families from the devastation these dangerous devices have been used to inflict in our communities.”
In recent years, machine-gun conversion devices like FRTs, which dramatically increase a firearm’s rate of fire, have been frequently used in violent crimes and mass shootings, worsening the gun violence epidemic in the United States. Firearms equipped with MCDs are able to exceed the rate of fire of many military machine guns, firing up to 20 bullets in one second. ATF has noted a significant rise in the use of MCDs, leading to increasing incidents of machine-gun fire – up 1,400% from 2019 through 2021.
In addition to Attorney General Brown, the attorneys general in Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‛i, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington secured commitments from the ATF and Rare Breed Triggers.”
