Attorney General Knudsen leads 28-state effort against overreaching firearms classification

HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen led a coalition of 28 states in filing an amicus brief against the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to thwart the Second Amendment by classifying forced reset triggers (FRT) as machine guns.

The brief, filed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the National Association for Gun Rights, asks the court to affirm the lower court’s decision and reject the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) overreaching attempt to classify FRTs as machine guns under the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). The attorneys general argue that the classification stretches the definition of “machinegun” too far under the GCA as FRTs don’t fire “more than one shot…by a single function of the trigger.”

“Time and again, ATF has ventured off into the regulatory wilderness, abandoning the only statutes that give it life in the first instance. Even though many of these statutes have remained essentially static for decades, ATF’s role in executing them grows larger by the day because it must create ‘new definitions’ that are ‘general enough to account for changes’ in society,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote in the brief. “But ATF misunderstands its job, and this misconception is statutorily unjustified and constitutionally impermissible.”

The ATF has a history of overstepping its statutory authority. In three recent cases, the court has halted the ATF’s “misadventures.” For example, for years the ATF had no qualms with stabilizing braces but then changed course, proposing a rule that would have turned millions of gun owners into felons if they failed to register stabilizing braces they lawfully own with the federal government and pay a tax. Attorney General Knudsen sued the Biden-Harris administration over the rule, and it was found unlawful by two courts.

The ATF also went too far in its attempt to “squeeze ‘weapons parts kits’ into the GCA’s definition of ‘firearm’” and bump stock final rule which would have transformed hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners into criminals.

Additionally, the Constitution gives Congress the power to change firearms policy – not the ATF or the courts.

“Regulating FRTs, like sports gambling and many other controversial subjects, requires important policy choices reserved for Congress, not courts or agencies,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote.

Attorneys General from West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona State Legislature also joined the brief.

Click here to read the brief.