A Texas company that produces triggers that allow AR-15-style rifles to fire like automatic weapons asked the Second Circuit on Wednesday to overturn a preliminary injunction on sales of its product. Rare Breed Triggers is currently locked in a legal battle with the federal government, which filed a civil fraud lawsuit against the company last year claiming it continued to market the trigger despite being warned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the product qualified as an illegal machine gun under federal law, Courthouse News reports. The government, seeking a permanent ban on sales of the trigger, claims Rare Breed Triggers defrauded its customers by not properly warning them that the ATF considers the product illegal.
In September 2023, a lower court granted a preliminary injunction barring Rare Breed Triggers from selling its flagship product — called forced-reset triggers, or FRT-15s — as the civil fraud case plays out. The page on the company’s website that once sold the triggers is now empty. Rare Breed Triggers wants the Second Circuit to overturn that order so it can continue selling the product and keep the company afloat. The appellate panel will not decide whether the product should or should not qualify as a machine gun. Rather, it will determine whether the lower court’s preliminary injunction was justified based on the government’s claims that Rare Breed Triggers defrauded its customers. U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan, a Donald Trump appointee, acknowledged the company may have put some consumers in jeopardy by selling them a product that could get them in legal trouble.
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