The NFA says “by a single function of the trigger”. A button that activates a trigger rapidly with a motor would be legal, because the act’s definition is limited to the function of the trigger, not the action of the controller or the mechanics of the activation. Like it or not that’s the law as it stands, and that’s the only definition that matters unless and until we elect a majority of Congressional representatives who want to change it.
In that scenario the button is the trigger. Trigger is being used not to describe a curved piece of metal you put your finger on but the input device. The oral arguments had a lot around that issue.
That’s not actually true. It’s certainly a trigger, but it’s not the trigger of the firearm. The trigger assembly responsible for activation of the hammer and firing pin would remain unaltered, but the button would activate some kind of rotating and/or vibrating apparatus which engages the trigger assembly over and over and over in rapid succession. They go into a lot of detail about this in the opinion, including the definitions they’re referencing with the word “trigger” (pp 7-14).
On weapons with these standard trigger mechanisms, the phrase “function of the trigger” means the physical trigger movement required to shoot the firearm. Pg. 7
Although it sounds like there maybe be edge cases where specially designed firearms are treated differently if they lack a traditional mechanism.
I think you’re right. I don’t think we’re far removed from a computer being attached to a firing pin such that electrical impulses cause microvibrations which force a firing pin into a cartridge with unimaginable rapidity. In that case, there’d be no trigger mechanism at all except a button and a microprocessor, and so our definitions will have to adapt rapidly to avoid unimaginable bloodshed.
I dunno about a servo/motor interface being legal, ATF went to and fro over the Akins Accelerator in the mid 2000s before they decided that it is a machine gun because it added springs to provide the reset - thus in their view it became integral to the gun like a drop in auto sear, and falls under the ‘single function’ test.
The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun
The 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas found the Justice Department was wrong to declare that bump stocks transformed semiautomatic rifles into illegal machine guns because, he said, they don’t “alter the basic mechanics of firing.”
The conservative majority that spent pages using circular logic to determine what a trigger is were wrong, and this quote is a prime example.
Edit: Hot damn, the dissent is an excellent tear down of how terrible the logic used in the majority opinion is.
This Court itself has also previously read the definition of “machinegun” in this exact statute to refer to the action of the shooter rather than the firing mechanism. In Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 (1994), the Court noted that “a weapon that fires repeatedly with a single pull of the trig- ger” is a machinegun, as opposed to “a weapon that fires only one shot with each pull of the trigger,” which is (at most) a semiautomatic firearm. Id., at 602, n. 1 (emphasis added). A “pull” of the trigger necessarily requires human input.
The NFA says “by a single function of the trigger”. A button that activates a trigger rapidly with a motor would be legal, because the act’s definition is limited to the function of the trigger, not the action of the controller or the mechanics of the activation. Like it or not that’s the law as it stands, and that’s the only definition that matters unless and until we elect a majority of Congressional representatives who want to change it.
In that scenario the button is the trigger. Trigger is being used not to describe a curved piece of metal you put your finger on but the input device. The oral arguments had a lot around that issue.See the reply below
That’s not actually true. It’s certainly a trigger, but it’s not the trigger of the firearm. The trigger assembly responsible for activation of the hammer and firing pin would remain unaltered, but the button would activate some kind of rotating and/or vibrating apparatus which engages the trigger assembly over and over and over in rapid succession. They go into a lot of detail about this in the opinion, including the definitions they’re referencing with the word “trigger” (pp 7-14).
You’re correct went back and reread it:
Although it sounds like there maybe be edge cases where specially designed firearms are treated differently if they lack a traditional mechanism.
I think you’re right. I don’t think we’re far removed from a computer being attached to a firing pin such that electrical impulses cause microvibrations which force a firing pin into a cartridge with unimaginable rapidity. In that case, there’d be no trigger mechanism at all except a button and a microprocessor, and so our definitions will have to adapt rapidly to avoid unimaginable bloodshed.
Extending the traditional trigger’s function by adding more and more complex Rube Goldbergian designs just moves where and how the trigger starts.
I dunno about a servo/motor interface being legal, ATF went to and fro over the Akins Accelerator in the mid 2000s before they decided that it is a machine gun because it added springs to provide the reset - thus in their view it became integral to the gun like a drop in auto sear, and falls under the ‘single function’ test.
The conservative majority that spent pages using circular logic to determine what a trigger is were wrong, and this quote is a prime example.
Edit: Hot damn, the dissent is an excellent tear down of how terrible the logic used in the majority opinion is.