The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has begun an effort to recover Wide Open Triggers (WOT) from gun owners in multiple states.
The WOT is a forced reset trigger (FRT). A forced reset trigger uses the energy from the bolt carrier group to reset the trigger. This action allows the shooter to fire the gun at an accelerated rate. The ATF claims that most FRTs are machineguns. Even though the gun owner must pull the trigger to expel each shot, the ATF claims it is still a single function of the trigger and, therefore, a machinegun. Rare Breed Triggers is facing a lawsuit in New York by the United States government over the selling of FRTs. Rare Breed Triggers has unsuccessfully sued the federal government on multiple occasions and in different districts.
In January 2022, the ATF showed up at the doors of Big Daddy Unlimited (BDU) and other Big Daddy Enterprises businesses to confiscate the company’s stock of WOTs and Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15. The company handed over all the triggers and stopped selling them. In March of the same year, the ATF released an open letter claiming that “some” FRTs are machineguns.
“ATF’s examination found that some FRT devices allow a firearm to automatically expel more than one shot with a single, continuous pull of the trigger. For this reason, ATF has concluded that FRTs that function in this way are a combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and hence, ATF has classified these devices as a ‘machinegun’ as defined by the NFA and GCA,” The ATF letter read.
Last Friday, AmmoLand News received reports that ATF agents in Texas were visiting select gun owners in an attempt to try to recover WOT triggers from gun owners who purchased the item from the Big Daddy Unlimited website.
On Tuesday, AmmoLand News received notifications from other gun owners beyond Texas that ATF agents have either visited or called asking that the gun owners voluntarily turn over the triggers. Agents told the people that they “were not in any trouble” and just wanted the triggers, claiming they were machineguns. They further claim that the owners are violating the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) by owning the triggers.
AmmoLand News contacted Tony McKnight, the owner of Big Daddy Unlimited and Wide Open Enterprises, and asked if he or the company had turned over customer information. He adamantly denied that the company had sent any information on their customers to the ATF. He stated that the company “digitally shredded” all transactions of the sale of the triggers. Although there are methods of wiping data that make it hard to recover, there is not a 100% foolproof way of ensuring the data is gone outside shredding the drives where the customer files are stored.
McKnight did state that the company uses Authorize.net to process credit cards. Authorize.net is one of the few payment processors that work with firearms retailers but also has a history of working with the ATF. When Polymer80 customers were being tracked down, it turned out that the ATF asked for and received information from the credit card processor and Stamps.com. AmmoLand News cannot be sure how the ATF got the customer information because companies deny giving over information or not responding to our request for comments. The ATF is not tipping its hand about how it received the WOT owner’s information.
This wave of confiscations isn’t the first time the ATF has targeted owners of forced reset triggers.
Last August, the ATF started showing up at people’s doors across the country, trying to recover Rare Breed FRT-15 triggers. Many owners did surrender the triggers, but others took a more defiant stand. All gun owners that were visited purchased their triggers off Gun Broker. This time, all the WOT owners that we have spoken to apparently purchased their triggers directly from the BDU website.
AmmoLand News reached out to the ATF to get an answer as to where the Bureau acquired the information on the trigger owners and what the ATF wants people to do if they have a WOT. ATF Public Affairs Division Deputy Chief Erik Longnecker did not answer AmmoLand’s question about where the government got the list of WOT owners but did refer to the open letter from March of 2022. The letter states that owners should contact their local field office to arrange to turn in the triggers.
“Based on ATF’s determination that the FRTs that function as described above are ‘machineguns’ under the NFA and GCA, ATF intends to take appropriate remedial action with respect to sellers and possessors of these devices. Current possessors of these devices are encouraged to contact ATF for further guidance on how they may divest possession. If you are uncertain whether the device you possess is a machinegun as defined by the GCA and NFA, please contact your local ATF Field Office. You may consult the local ATF Office’s webpage for office contact information,” the letter reads.
Authorize.net did not return AmmoLand’s request for comment if it turned over the information to the ATF.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
And to think the largest single Mass Murder (76 people including 26 children) in the last 30+ years, Was perpetrated by the Federal Alphabet Gangs. BATFE and FBI. Any guesses as to who and when?
W A C C O by the FBI/CIA in TEXAS!!!
OR,
Was it a building that was BLOWN UP by a truck parked outside and DYNOMITE at the bases of columns inside of the FEDERAL BUILDING?????
Regarding mass murders, AFAIK in modern times #1 was 9/11, some 3000 dead. Weapons were box cutters and hijacked aircraft, no guns were used. And we’re still dealing with the repercussions today.
#2 was the OKC bombing, 168 killed including little children at a day care center. The weapon was a rental truck with a homemade fertilizer bomb. No guns were used.
#3 was the 1990 Happy Land nightclub fire in the Bronx. 87 people died in an act of arson using $1 worth of gasoline poured in a stairway and ignited – no guns were used.
You need to spend some time on https://www.ae911truth.org/ if you really believe #1. And spend some time watching a “Nobel Lie” on Youtube if you believe #2. SERIOUSLY!!!
Thanks for making my point. No firearms used.
Forgot Nice truck attack. afaik it riveled OKC bombing.
Wasn’t there a terrorist school attack in Russia in which a couple hundred children died – majority at hands of the hero cops/military coming to save them?
There are uncounted homicides committed in Africa all the time. Whether by some warlord or by a random individual – victims are just as dead.
If you want to stretch a little – you could put current war in Ukraine at the top. Far more deaths than from 9/11 and great example of why we have the 2nd in this nation.
So you’re not going to count millions over 2 years of a pandemic that was released from a biolab?
That doesn’t count. They’re special. They are allowed to rob, rape, murder, blow shit up etc. because WE THE PEOPLE don’t have our militias to indict them for the murderous psychopathic control freaks they are.
‘We the People’ simply don’t have the resolve or the courage to throw off the Tyranny being perpetrated by the most deadly and biggest threat to Freedom and Liberty part of the government. The nameless faceless Bureaucracy. That operates as a governing body without the vote of the ‘People’. Something that was specifically addressed in the Declaration of Independence.
The trigger level has not been reached yet.
HLB
I would like you to explain exactly what you think the trigger level is or should be?
Similar to the trigger levels before our war with England.
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/08/12/how-the-british-gun-control-program-precipitated-the-american-revolution/
the Intolerable Acts…
closure of Boston’s port, effectively cutting off all trade…
dissolved the provincial government in the state…
sent Redcoats to squash an “illegal” town meeting in Salem…
Boston Massacre…
Redcoats raided a Charlestown powder house…
Known as the Powder Alarm…
warrantless searches of people for arms and ammunition…
seized twenty barrels of gunpowder from the public magazine…
carried out his own gun confiscation policy against the remaining Bostonians…
HLB
Then riddle me this? Texas is now the 15th Second Amendment Sanctuary State. On June 17, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 2622, the “Second Amendment Sanctuary State Act.”. In passing this bill, Texas joins the states of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming which have all passed legislation of their own in support of the Second Amendment.
Texas is now the 15th Second Amendment Sanctuary State …
sanctuarycounties.com/2021/06/17/texas-is-now-the-15th-second-amendm
I would say the sear is slipping.
HLB
Did you know, that the Louisiana States’ definition of fully automatic fire, is eight or more rounds? That’s pretty cool I guess….
That’s probably to protect the revelry of Fat Tuesday and subsequent festivities.
burst triggers are not automatic fire
Well my point is that atf considers one pull, and more than one round; a machine gun….and anything more than one round, as automatic fire…
Louisiana considers one pull, up.to eight rounds as not being automatic fire. Burst or not.
Actually the three-shot burst mechanisms are considered full auto under the description. However, the push is on to remove the agency(ies) that are infringing on these inherent rights, so we need to keep pushing forward and accomplish our push for our freedom, liberty and pursuits of happiness as GUARANTEED!
So? Cutting off our gas and oil production, selling our MILITARY RESERVE OIL to the enemies, pushing gun and gun parts confiscations, the hundreds of food processing plants being destroyed, the multitudes of train derailments occurring near what appears to be vital water and other resources, the allowance of Chinese spy balloons to infiltrate our air space, allowing faggots dressed in costumes to prance around and debase our children, the push of the LGBTQ agenda and NOT the WE, The People majority, allowing special interests to rule the White House, the weaponization of our federal agencies against, WE, The People… Read more »
“To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.” Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)
I would disagree with the last part of that statement. It isn’t a constitutional PRIVILEGE. It is a RIGHT guaranteed by the Constitution with the words SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. The Founding fathers wanted all of the citizens to have access to the terrible instruments of war for one purpose. TO BE ABLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES against a TYRANNICAL BUNCH OF PEOPLE who are SUPPOSED to be ADMINSTERING the GOVERNMENT that is set down in the CONSTITUTION. Our very LANGUAGE has been weaponized against us.
he is quoting ruling
…and besides, where you been swmft?
Arizona’s got that correct. There is such a thing as ‘Constitutional Privilege’ as to what is and not allowed in certain cases. Right–Privilege Distinction | Encyclopedia.com
War Arm?
Do I hear Lexington? Concord?
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/08/12/how-the-british-gun-control-program-precipitated-the-american-revolution/
HLB
Not yet, but getting closer
“asking that the gun owners voluntarily turn over the triggers. Agents told the people that they “were not in any trouble” “ Not in trouble? Then you won’t have any trouble buying this from me for what I paid for it, plus tax, plus shipping. Oh, and before you leave, signing this hand receipt that acknowledges that you bought this off me and that it is no longer in my possession. Not looking to make a profit, just looking to recoup my cost on what was, yesterday, a legal and lawfully owned product. And today, illegal by Gooberment fiat, by no… Read more »
As they hand you counterfeit bills in exchange, then have you busted by the Secret Service for passing bogus cash.
THAT is exactly what the 10th Amendment is all about! THAT is our WE, The People coverage plan!
“The citizen has, at all times, the right to keep the arms of modern warfare, and to use them in such manner as they may be capable of being used, without annoyance and hurt to others, in order that he may be trained and efficient in their use.”Andrews v. State, (1871)
Well that was back “then”. Today we have arms of modern warfare that should only be used against us by the psychopathic control freaks. It wouldn’t be fair for them if we were equally or better armed. I hope you understand.
Hell, us old farts still being able to take out threats from as far away as 500 yards using iron sights makes a lot of them pee their pants!
I can’t do it at that distance , I want to see the white of their eyes !!
May find it harder to take out multiple threats at that range.
real good scope, and take it out to two thousand yards
As with the leader of the ATF (can’t define what an AR is) the ATF has NO idea what they are talking about! Abolish the ATF NOW!
Wasn’t an AR he couldn’t define – it was an “assault weapon”. Your point still stands…. Detelbach (sp?) is a prime example of biden appointments based on ideology or social criteria instead of competence, knowledge, and honor. Is it any wonder none of the executive branch follows the constitution – when few at the top even have a clue what it says?
Sleepy Joe’s appointments are only based on race and chosen sexual orientation. Qualifications or brains don’t count.
Could be, but doubtful, he would not define an assault rifle/weapon because he bloody well knows such a thing does not exist. Please, nobody come-back with that an M16 is an assault rifle because it has a select fire feature, the NFA would list them as a machine gun, which they are.
Well, the ATF triggers me, but that is a story for another day.
This is why you either (if you live close enough) go visit the store in person and purchase (80% lowers, triggers, bump stocks, “pistol” brace) with green, untraceable cash.
OR—-
Have a friend who lives close enough, buys for you (with cash) and mails (it) to you.
And when going to the store park sufficiently far away as to not indicate which store you went to, don’t take your cell phone, wear a hat and sunglasses, hide your tattoos, etc.
I say do whatever you want but be willing to shoot them in the face if it comes down to it. I had a confrontation with two of those pieces of human crap over 26 years ago. And both of them came really close to death and I’m sure they didn’t even realize it. After that…well it would have been balls to the wall and front page news. HI MICHAEL SPRINGER! HI HERB BYERLY! I hope both of you bastards are dead by now. (I claim the right guaranteed by the 1st amendment to be able to call both of… Read more »
And be prepared to shoot first if they so much as flinch.
“Are you gonna pull those pistols, or whistle Dixie?”
Don’t keep your feelings bottled up. It’s not good for your health. Tell us how you REALLY feel.
Bullets first boys, time to stand on the hill.
FACT.
I agree 100%. The simple fact is that ATF has nowhere near the number of boots on the ground to enforce anything, if only we band together.
It is a fact that the ATF is a small portion of the number of Federal armed enforcers, plus the tens of thousands of new armed IRS agents proposed need to be considered. A lot needs to be considered before an action that should have occurred just after WWI. I consider the ATF as the FBIs shock troops. They could be considered the same for the entire Federal government.
Let’s not forget all the people who believe the ATF is benevolent.
What did these companies use to ship the triggers? I just went to the USPS website and saw photographs of the two pieces of mail that will be delivered to me later today. Don’t think they, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. can’t look up any package by sender or recipient that has passed through their hands any time in the past several years.
Where do you go on USPS to see that? That seems to be a problem. I should be able to see what you were delivered just as easily if that’s the case.
You first need an account on usps.com. I use mine to hold mail when out of town or to print shipping labels to go on a priority mail envelope or box. After logging in, at the top of the page is a “Quick Tools” bar with drop down menus. Under “Received” is the choice “Informed Delivery.” That will display images of your mail. I’m using Firefox, your view may be different.
Yup, every item of mail is photographed as it enters the system. Informed delivery gets you a daily email with the pics. No doubt the gov is using that to see who got items from certain companies. Doesn’t tell them contents, just sender and receiver and outside of parcel.
We have been using informed delivery about five years now, and it actually has a lot of glitches in it. Our reaction to the daily e-mails is: Well, let’s wait and see. It is running about 60% accurate, according to our own statistics.
So it seems that states and feds play loose and free with the terms. Here in WA they implemented a “Fee” in place of a “Tax” when we voted to eliminate State Alcohol sales. Last week the State Supreme court upheld “Capital Gains” as not “Income.”
It appears what we have here is; “A Lever Actuated Finger to Firing Pin Interface.” At the end of the day it’s just a “Lever.”
Reads like the way the NFA came into existence.
Any thing wearing a badge and/or calling for ANY gun laws is a traitor to the constitution! Shall not be infringed, what part of this do the idiots not understand. I have the right to run any weapon I can afford to feed. I don’t ask permission from anyone! Repeal the NFA immediately, the ATF should be fired as a lot for willingly infringing on the American people. It’s time to start hanging traitors. Hang them high, covered in hot tar and feathers. Dead traitors swing in the wind to be a lesson to those future politicians…we’re tired of being… Read more »
Strip away their pensions and all benefits so their widows and children have to stand in line for bread and soup in this America they helped create.
I can ‘t wait till these clowns at the ATF ignite the fire the Britts did . Then let’s see how big thier balla are .
Read that the Alphabet Boys Clubs have budgeted for large quantities of body bags. When SHTF it will be up to We The Little Peeps….vets and patriots….to determine whose bodies fill them.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, the second amendment, the constitutional law of the land THAT EVERY ATFE AGENT SWEARS AN OATH OF ALIEGIENCE TO. This law restricts the government not the people who own any weapon that a militia might use. Any law that goes against the constitution is illegal, null and void per the scotus case of Marbury vs Madison. This puts into legal jeopardy the atfe itself much less their treasonous and tyrannical acts such as noted in this… Read more »
I would like to see the ATF expert(s) demonstrate the ‘machine gun’ trigger at the ATF Range, step one to use a rifle without the WOT, then the same model with the WOT and pull that trigger one and only one time.
End of demonstration and and end to this insanity that a trigger is a machine gun.
But did the ATF even test the WOT and demonstrate it firing as a machine gun? Or did they just look at it or maybe test fire and feel the reset before their determination? Don’t forget, they were only able to make the FTR-15 fire full auto by adding a spring in the form of a zip-tie
Crumpy, you can permanently erase data on a hard drive. In “the olden days” when a bit of data had a large physical footprint, the disk only had to be overwritten with 1s and 0s three times to move it from a classified secret environment back to the unclassified world. With the data density of today’s hard drive it is even more difficult to recover overwritten data. Functionally, a Solid State Drive only need be overwritten once but I was out of the game before those came along so I don’t know those rules. Of course any data storage device… Read more »
Thank you John for this information.
Now I wish I would have gotten one, so when they came to “recover” it, I would get the opportunity to ‘just say no’.
I f you are big, dumb and stupid the ATF is looking for you. No experience necessary. The culturally deprived are encouraged to apply!
With apologies to Canned Heat.
Here I go again, telling people to just write or call the local DA and everyone else they can think of in the legal system, and demand to know where they can see a written guarantee that they will actually get a fair trial, so they can read it for themselves!! Without that guarantee, the “trial” is just another scam that is being run on us all! And since the USSC/SCOTUS revealed the truth to us last year in the reversal of Roe v. Wade, that the entire legal system is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, just WHERE is our bona… Read more »
Have the voter skeptics had enough, yet? Please, before Brandon’s jackbooted thugs come for your stuff, get involved locally and even with the cheating, we can take back our freedoms. But only with your help. Continuing to sit on your LazyBoy crying about elections being a waste of time, while meanwhile the rainbow hued pierced fellow next door with his Bernie Bro shit in the window and Fauxcahontas Warren campaign signs laying in their yard spends about 30 minutes a day working his “Bro’s” to vote commie is what is causing us to become even less of a second class… Read more »
LOL! Someone has you fooled. Time for the last box of the four boxes the Founding Fathers left us…It has been before I was born.
I hate to break it to you, but no Election will fix what’s wrong in DC. They’ve had over 200 years to establish and embed an Unelected Bureaucracy that runs/ruins the country.
The “design to reduce us under Absolute Despotism” has been in place for nearly 90 years.
Gunny Ermy was one of those all-time greats.
Not worth the tima and bother.
IMOA, if BATFE are going house to house to recover these items it proves one thing for sure, they know who has firearms already and where to find them.
The ATF is going hammer-and-tong after a technology that is used in statistically 0% of violent crimes, while at the same time ATF agents could be arresting known violent felons in possession of firearms and intending to use them every day in large cities. But ATF careers depend on numbers of arrests and numbers of confiscations, rather than quality of them, so they seek low-hanging fruit from people who pose them no physical threat. Meanwhile, felon gangbangers carry without a fear that undercover ATF agents will walk up on them and arrest them and protect the community from them.
I asked for the WOT trigger for Christmas from my wife. The other day we get a certified letter from the ATF, addressed to her, wanting the trigger. Fearing even being in the same room with an ATF person, we contacted a lawyer and turned the trigger over to a judge. The judge is taking care of turning in the trigger to the ATF and removing us from the situation. So now I am out the money of the trigger, that I never even got to install or use, and another $2500 for a lawyer. Has anyone thought of a… Read more »
Governments are gangs, nothing more and nothing less. A group of people that are often well funded, and well organized. A group of people that have banded together to force others to live by the gang’s sense of right and wrong. Their “might”, and nothing else, makes them “right.”
I don’t see how THIS can be happening in Texas?
Texas is now the 15th Second Amendment Sanctuary State. On June 17, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 2622, the “Second Amendment Sanctuary State Act.”. In passing this bill, Texas joins the states of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming which have all passed legislation of their own in support of the Second Amendment.
Texas is now the 15th Second Amendment Sanctuary State …
sanctuarycounties.com/2021/06/17/texas-is-now-the-15th-second-amendm