TRENTON, N.J. — More than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general said Thursday they plan to defend two gun regulations now being challenged in court, including one banning devices that enable semiautomatic guns to fire more quickly.
New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matt Platkin said his state and others with Democratic attorneys general, plan to intervene in cases already in the court system ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday.
One case involves devices known as forced reset triggers, or FRTs, which can be installed on weapons, functionally turning them into machine guns, according to Platkin. The other centers on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulation that came out of a 2022 law. The rule aims to close what is sometimes called the “gun show loophole,” by requiring up to an estimated 95,500 firearm sellers to conduct background checks.
Second Amendment advocacy groups and Republican-led states have challenged the rules in court.
“The incoming Administration has threatened these common-sense protections, so States are stepping in,” Platkin said in a statement.
It’s uncertain exactly how Trump would proceed, but he told an NRA audience during last year’s campaign that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”
The action comes just a day after New Jersey and other Democratic state attorneys general sought to intervene in cases involving so-called Dreamers, young adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and coincides with Democratic efforts to push back against Trump’s second administration.
A federal judge in Texas held in 2024 that the trigger devices don’t count as machine guns, blocking the ATF from enforcing a ban of the devices. The case is awaiting a decision before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2024, a federal judge in Texas held that FRTs do not qualify as machine guns and issued a court order prohibiting ATF from taking criminal or civil enforcement actions regarding FRTs against a broad swath of entities, and ordering ATF to return FRTs to distributors by Feb. 22, 2025. The United States appealed that decision, and the parties are awaiting a decision from a federal appeals court.
Joining New Jersey in intervening in that case are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
The second case centers on a rule implementing the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law. The ATF rule expanded the category of people defined as “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms. It meant that an estimated 26,000 to 95,500 dealers would be required to get federally licensed and therefore be required to conduct background checks before sales. In May, 26 GOP attorneys general filed suits aiming to block the rule, arguing it violates the Second Amendment.
Along with New Jersey, other states intervening in that case are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.