In an interview, the president of Rare Breed Triggers, Lawrence DeMonico, shared details about his company’s recent settlement with the Trump administration and plans to sell forced-reset triggers (FRTs) for a wider range of firearms — beyond AR-style weapons.
FRTs are replacement triggers for semi-automatic firearms that automatically return forward, or reset, after being pulled. If a shooter pulls an FRT and holds it back, the gun will continue firing like a machine gun. To learn more, click here.
Shortly after Rare Breed Triggers first unveiled FRTs for AR-15s in December 2020, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) classified the devices as machine guns, making them illegal for civilians to own. The move led to several lawsuits. But last month, the Trump administration reversed the federal government’s position and announced a settlement with the company that effectively legalized the triggers.
In the interview, DeMonico said, “We currently have two models for the AR that are in production, we’ve got a model for the AK-47 that’s in production, and we’ve got one for the [Heckler & Koch] MP5 in production. We have a handful of others that are still in late stages of development, but they’re not far behind.”1James Reeves, “EXCLUSIVE: Inside the FRT Settlement with Rare Breed,” YouTube, June 1, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qtoLBHTNpI&t=1s at 34:48.
the frt settlement
In the settlement, the U.S. government agreed to drop three lawsuits involving Rare Breed Triggers, stop enforcing federal machine gun regulations against the company, and return FRTs to customers. In exchange, Rare Breed agreed to defend its FRT patent in court and not produce the triggers for “any handgun” where the “magazine loads into the trigger-hand grip,” a definition not found in any federal regulations. As noted here, this language allows the company to produce FRTs for a range of assault pistols — including AR, AK, and MP5 pistols, among others — in addition to rifles and shotguns.
According to DeMonico, the Department of Justice originally wanted to include language in the settlement to stop his company from selling FRTs for AR, MP5, and CZ Scorpion assault pistols, but he insisted on the “handgun” language because Rare Breed had already “designed, developed and patented” FRTs for MP5-style assault pistols, and he wasn’t “willing to give that up.”2Ibid, at 22:24.
While he could not explain why the government was so focused on pistols but not rifles or shotguns, DeMonico admitted that conventional handguns equipped with FRTs are both “ridiculous” and “dangerous. We felt that it was irresponsible as a company to put them in handguns. So when they asked for pistols, I drew a hard line and said, ‘No, but I’ll give you handguns.’”3Ibid, at 22:46.
Despite these comments, DeMonico and his company apparently have no qualms with producing FRTs for weapons that are more powerful, accurate, and easier to control in rapid fire than conventional handguns.
help from the trump administration
Rare Breed’s lawyer, Josiah Contarino, joined DeMonico for the interview. After claiming that the company’s lawsuits against the Biden administration were about “pushing back on a tyrannical executive and unelected bureaucrats,”4Ibid, at 14:40. Contarino said that the settlement with the Trump administration came about because his firm wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for help.5Ibid, at 13:43.
Contarino works for the Dhillon Law Group, whose founder, Harmeet Dhillon, was sworn in as the assistant attorney general for civil rights, working under Attorney General Pam Bondi, in April. Rare Breed was also previously represented in court by David Warrington, who now serves as the White House Counsel.
Contarino claimed that “both parties” were interested in settling6Ibid, at 15:10. — after admitting that the federal government’s lawsuit against Rare Breed in the Second Circuit “was not going our way.”7Ibid, 12:28.
He also said that FRT owners can now “wave the settlement agreement around” to avoid being prosecuted for possessing machine guns.8Ibid, 17:27.
states sue the feds
While the federal government seems fixated on allowing individuals to own dangerous weapons that fire like machine guns, some state governments are showing signs of fighting back. After the settlement was announced, 15 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration’s “reckless decision will not only endanger the public — putting people nationwide at greater risk of deadly violence — but is also contrary to federal law.”
Further, the plaintiff states allege that “[t]housands of weapons their own laws prohibit will be directly distributed within their borders, and they will have to expend substantial resources to enforce those laws to confiscate these very same illegal items.” According to the plaintiffs, “redistributing” FRTs “would both undermine public safety and generate significant added law-enforcement and healthcare costs.”