DOJ Sells Out Gun Owners—Cuts Secret Deal With Blue States

Maryland, Illinois, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and Rhode Island sued the federal government the moment the Trump DOJ signaled it might do the legally defensible thing: return seized trigger switches to the people they were taken from.

Those states panicked—and for good reason. Their own bans would be exposed as functionally unenforceable the second Washington started mailing property home.

So they cut a deal. A backroom, no-gun-owners-invited deal.

The feds agreed not to return the devices to anyone living in a state where they're banned. The blue-state AGs dropped their lawsuit. Everyone in the executive branch shook hands and walked away satisfied.

**The gun owners whose property was seized? Not at the table. Never were.**

Let's be precise about what these devices actually are—because the opposition is counting on you not knowing. Forced-reset triggers and similar rapid-fire mechanisms exist in a federal legal gray zone the ATF has stumbled through for years. Courts have repeatedly slapped the agency down for overreach on this exact classification. These are not automatic weapons. They are not machine guns under any consistent legal definition.

Blue-state politicians call them machine guns anyway—because the label does the political work their evidence cannot.

This settlement is a property rights ambush dressed in the language of legal compromise. The federal government seized these items. Courts began questioning whether the legal basis for holding them even existed. And rather than do the straightforward thing—return property to its owners—DOJ negotiated with hostile state governments to guarantee that citizens in the wrong ZIP codes stay permanently disarmed and uncompensated.

**Your address is now a forfeiture condition. Think about that.**

If you live in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island, or DC and had property taken in these seizures, you just got sold out twice. Once by the ATF when they grabbed your property. Now by a settlement that treats where you sleep as legal justification for keeping it.

This is what 'cooperative federalism' looks like when Washington decides a blue-state gun ban is worth more than your property rights.

What you should do right now: Contact your state legislators and demand they introduce or support legislation nullifying these bans and requiring the return of confiscated property. If you're in an affected state and lost devices to federal seizure, consult a Second Amendment attorney immediately—this settlement binds the feds' conduct, not your civil claims against them.

Watch this one. The template just got tested—and it worked. If DOJ will cut this deal on trigger switches, ask yourself what they'll negotiate away next.