Hey folks, arrested for having an FRT, a forced reset trigger, at a range. Let’s talk about it. Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. Today we’ve got a case that cuts right into one of the hottest debates into a circles. A man is now facing machine gun charges simply for owning a forced reset trigger. That’s right, a trigger device, not a full automatic rifle. It’s a trigger and it’s not something that they’re supposed to be enforcing anymore, at least feds, right? Well let’s talk about how the government’s charging this man and the legal quagmire around FRTs, where the courts stand and what this means for you or I, the gun owner, especially if you have one.

So let’s dive in. Let me set the scene here. A man from Washington DC visited a gun range in Northern Virginia carrying a 3D printed forced reset trigger. The authorities are now charging him under the machine gun statutes simply for possessing or carrying that trigger device. First let’s look at this police report, and the report says on September 26, 2025, investigator Kelman with the Metropolitan Police Department, this is in DC, received an anonymous tip from a citizen regarding an individual named Erez Avasar, hereafter referred to as defendant Avasar, who was possibly in possession of a 3D printer within the District of Columbia.

Oh no, not a printer. The anonymous citizen stated on September 22, 2025, defendant Avasar entered the Silver Eagle group shooting range. It is a spelling error, it is Silver Eagle. The Silver Eagle group is a firearm range located in Ashburn, Virginia. The range offers services including lane rental and firearm rental for use on the range. Defendant Avasar had a membership at Silver Eagle for approximately six months. On September 22, 2025, defendant Avasar rented a rifle to shoot on one of the lanes. During his time on the rented lane, defendant Avasar began to disassemble the rented rifle and attempted to place what the anonymous citizen learned to be a forced reset trigger.

This device has the capability to turn a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic rifle. It’s a lie. This type of device is against the policies of the Silver Eagle group shooting range and is illegal to possess in the District of Columbia. An employee stopped defendant Avasar from completing the task of placing the FRT fully into the rifle. The employee advised defendant Avasar that this action was against the rules of the range. The employee asked defendant Avasar where he got the FRT from. Defendant Avasar replied that he used the 3D printer at his residence to print the FRT.

Defendant Avasar went on further to explain that the FRT did not work on his personal rifle and attempted to see if it would work on the rented rifle. At that time, defendant Avasar’s rentals were suspended and he was sent on his way. Investigator Kelvin conducted an investigation which led to the issuance of a residential search warrant at his redacted address, obviously. On November 25th, a DC Superior Court search warrant was signed by Honorable Judge Park. On Wednesday, October 8th, 2025, members of the Violent Crime Suppression Division’s Robbery Suppression Unit responded to the address to execute the residential search warrant.

Sergeant Posinger conducted a knock at announce and after a reasonable amount of time, the Metropolitan Police Department forced entry into the residence. Defendant Avasar was inside of the residence and was the defendant Avasar was detained without incident. Once inside of the location, investigator Kelvin observed what appeared to be 3D printed FRTs in plain view on a workstation directly next to the defendant’s bed. Due to the multiple 3D printed FRTs in plain view, investigator Kelvin requested an addendum search warrant to seize electronic devices inside of the residence. On October 8th, 2025, Honorable Judge Elderman signed an addendum DC Superior search warrant for all electronics inside of the residence.

MPD photographed the residence prior to the search. During the search of the residence, the listed evidence was recovered. Studio apartment. Item 1, make Smith & Wesson model bodyguard 2.0 380. One chambered and eight in the magazine. Those are rounds obviously. Item 2, maverick arms model 88 caliber 12 gauge shotgun with nine in the magazine. Item 3, Ruger 1022, 22 caliber rifle. Four, 3D printed lowers. Item 5, 3D printed FRTs. Item 6, Phoenix Arms model HP 22A, 22 caliber firearm with 10 rounds in the magazine. Item 7, firearms optics.

I don’t know why they took those. Item 8, ammunition, 900 rounds of 22, 158 rounds of 380, 78 rounds of 223, 4 rounds of 556, and 65 rounds of 12 gauge. Item 9, 3D printed firearm accessories. Item 10, 3D printer. Item 11, 20 rolls of 3D printer filament. Item 12, 5 SD cards, 4 USB drives, 2 laptops, 3 electric storage banks, and 1 cell phone. Investigator Tips and ATF special agent Thomas responded to the second district to interview defendant Avasar. Defendant Avasar waved his rights and spoke with Investigator Tips and special agent Thomas.

During the interview, defendant Avasar confessed that he knew what FRTs are and how they are capable of turning a semi-automatic firearm into a fully automatic firearm. Well, that’s a lie. Defendant Avasar said he printed the FRTs using the 3D printer inside of his residence. Defendant Avasar stated his CAD files are located within his laptops. Defendant Avasar also told investigators that an additional rifle was located inside of his vehicle that was parked on public space. Investigator Tips and ATF special agent Thomas notified Investigator Killman of the additional firearm inside of defendant Avasar’s vehicle.

Investigators located the vehicle, the Toyota Prius, bearing district registration and registered to the defendant parked on a public space near his residence. Sergeant Posinger requested canine assistance to respond to the location. Canine handler Hoggins conducted a sweep of the vehicle. During the sweep, the canine gave a positive indication for the presence of a firearm. Investigators then conducted a warrantless search of the vehicle and located item 13, Andro Corp Industries model ACI 15, which was his AR in his Prius. All evidence was transported back to the violent crime suppression division for processing.

Based on the nature of the investigation, MPD investigators checked all firearms recovered for any modifications. MPD investigators partially disassembled the recovered rifle from the defendant Avasar vehicle. Upon further inspection, investigators immediately observed a 3D printed FRT placed in the rifle. Investigators recognized the 3D printed FRT inside of the rifle was consistent with the 3D printed FRT that was recovered from inside of redacted. All five firearms recovered were registered to the defendant at his home address. Based on the facts and circumstances surrounding the listed events, defendant Avasar was placed under arrest for possession of a machine gun and pistol license violation.

Defendant Avasar was transported and processed at the second district. Interesting, there’s some holes in this. First off, you have the right to remain silent. I strongly suggest you exercise that right every single time. Don’t talk to cops without an attorney. If you don’t have an attorney, get one. Now, while I was digging into this yesterday, I was given a Reddit post by someone who claims to be Avasar’s attorney. So I want to read that to you as well. This was posted in Reddit under the VA Guns subreddit. It says, Northern Virginia gun range snitched to ATF.

I am a gun rights lawyer with a significant amount of legal 3D 2A experience. I was the first person to legally 3D print firearms in the District of Columbia and I’m one of the most knowledgeable individuals in this space. ATF and local law enforcement working with them appears to be actively enforcing against people who design, print, or test forced reset triggers. A gun range in Sterling ratted out a member. I have been contacted by a DMV area individual who was recently swatted, arrested, and charged for machine gun possession over 3D printed forced reset trigger.

The individual in question was testing a drop-in FRT at a range in Northern Virginia and the RSO evidently made an anonymous tip. He was recently raided by MPD and ATF and he is now facing felony charges brought by the U.S. Attorney for the District. This is all from the charging document. Be smart. Don’t talk about your FRT in public. If someone reports to ATF that you’ve got a machine gun, they can go get a warrant as easy as blinking. ATF’s enforcement posture does not care about intent, good faith, or theoretical design specs.

If it walks, talks, or farts like a machine gun, they can come knocking. Don’t test experimental builds in public. Don’t volunteer information to strangers. Don’t trust RSOs. Most of them are great, but you never know when a FUD might decide to report you. And for the love of all that is good and holy, don’t talk to cops. Ever. Under any circumstances. No matter what you think it might accomplish, you cannot outsmart cops in an interview, even a recorded one, without the assistance of counsel. Seriously. I’m working to help this guy get representation and hopefully set up a challenge under Cargill v Garland, but it’s going to be an uphill battle.

My guy is facing five years in federal prison thanks to the lack of aggravating factors, but it could be 30 to life if they try to tack on more. Be smart. You don’t want to be the next test case. Now we don’t yet know all of the defense arguments, nor should we, in order for it to be a good defense, but this is becoming a test case. Why? Because the DOJ and ATF came to a settlement with rare breed triggers that FRTs are not machine guns, but that settlement only applies to rare breed trigger devices, and they must now enforce their patents, rare breed that is.

Yet another instance of where this Department of Justice has set up classes of protected people while others in the same, with the same item, are apparently not covered because they’re not part of a class. If the government can win this kind of prosecution, the implications here are enormous for gun owners. To understand why this is so controversial, you’ll have to understand how a force reset trigger works. Mechanically, an FRT is a trigger modification, usually replacing a standard trigger group in a firearm, that forces the trigger to reset after each shot, thus the name, forced reset trigger.

In plain language, once you fire the shot, the mechanism pushes the trigger out ready for you to pull it again, faster than you would manually be able to do it, although probably not as fast as some humans, like Jerry Mitchellik for one. Now the key point here is you still must pull the trigger each time, and every time. It doesn’t fire multiple rounds with one continuous pull, in fact it will only fire one round, and that’s what distinguishes it from a machine gun, a true machine gun. Because of that, the debate centers on how the National Firearms Act defines machine gun and whether an FRT turns a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun under statutory or regulatory definitions.

From the legal side, the ATF in years past had taken the position that forced reset triggers qualify as machine guns. On the other hand, FRT manufacturers and gun rights advocates and organizations argue that the device must still be pulled for each and every shot, that there is no single pull generating multiple rounds, and thus it does not meet the legal definition of machine gun. Now some states do ban FRTs and other trigger modifications, and Virginia and DC both remove your Second Amendment right in this arena. So when a guy brings a 3D printed FRT to a range, the government is saying you’re in possession of what is effectively a machine gun, and the defense will certainly counter by saying no it’s not, the law doesn’t support this classification, in fact you’ve gotten your teeth kicked in in courts.

But this is not uncharted territory. In July of 2024, federal judge in Texas, who’s our friend U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, invalidated the ATF’s regulatory classification of some forced reset triggers as machine guns. He said the ATF exceeded its authority in making that determination. That ruling effectively struck down the ban on FRTs that the ATF had attempted to enforce, at least in that jurisdiction. Lawsuits were filed by groups like National Association for Gun Rights who represented rare breed triggers in their settlement, and they were challenging ATF’s interpretation. I expect the defense will probably argue that the FRT in question does not produce multiple rounds from a single pull or function, so it fails the statutory definition.

The ATF’s reclassification was arbitrary, capricious, and beyond its authority according to the APA challenges that it lost routinely. ATF you can’t make law still. Now then there’s the whole ATF and AGR settlement, and we must place this in the broader legal regulatory environment here. The ATF has been actively trying to regulate rapid fire accessories like bump stocks and auto seers, etc. FRTs are a newer frontier in that battle. The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate or limit bans, an example on bump stocks, Cargill, that’s the case that the attorney was referring to, indirectly influences how lower courts treat FRT classifications.

In May, like I said, the government agreed to settle litigation with with the company rear-bree triggers, allowing them to continue selling FRTs under certain conditions, but are only their FRTs covered? I mean an FRT is an FRT, period. Also courts have begun pushing back on agency overreach. Judge O’Connor’s ruling was a strong signal that courts are not always going to defer to ATF interpretations anymore. The bottom line here is the legal landscape is unsettled. What happens in this particular case could tip the balance, so what should you take away from this? Well, risk awareness.

If you own or contemplate buying or printing a forced reset trigger, understand that you may be entering legally dangerous terrain. This case could establish precedent that criminalizes such type of possession, so do not rent guns at ranges and alter them with FRTs. Like use your brain here. Like don’t do that stuff. You’re just asking for negative attention. This is one of those cases, those frontline cases that we need to watch here. The outcome will ripple far beyond this one person. Can the states charge you for owning something that is legally protected according to the United States Constitution? Sound off down below.

What do you think? If you like this video, break down, smash the like button, subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already, and ring that bell notification so you don’t miss anything. I’ll be watching this case very closely, and we’ll provide any follow-up videos when something pops off here. Drop your thoughts in the comments down below. Do you side with the government’s approach, or do you think FRTs should remain legal? Until next time, stay safe, stay armed, and stay free, and don’t talk to the cops. Period. [tr:trw].

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