Binary triggers are neat little devices. They allow a gun to fire when you pull the trigger and release it. Each counts as a separate action of the trigger, thus skirting the National Firearms Act definition of a machine gun. Unsurprisingly, they're controversial, with the feds having tried to ban them via ATF fiat.
Minnesota lawmakers tried it, too, and their effort just took another significant setback.
A court refused to stay an earlier decision halting enforcement of the ban:
A Ramsey County judge has denied Minnesota’s request to allow the enforcement of a binary trigger ban while state attorneys appeal a ruling that declared the provision to be unconstitutional.
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The provision was slipped into a 1,500-page tax omnibus bill, a factor that the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus contended violated the Single Subject and Title Clause of the Minnesota Constitution.
In August, Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro sided with the plaintiffs and barred the state from enforcing the ban.The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office followed up with an appeal in September and asked the court to put its order on pause while the case played out.
In his ruling denying that motion, Castro said the state failed to show that an appeal would be likely to succeed or that a stay would be in the public interest.
Of course, it doesn't look like this challenge hinges on the Second Amendment concerns, but on the fact that the state's DFL party had to resort to some shady stuff to try to get this passed by throwing it into a tax bill that most people wouldn't read until it was too late.
Still, the fact that they did it that way tells us that they knew they couldn't get it passed via the legislature directly. While Minnesota is still a blue state, the legislature isn't as in lockstep with the Democratic Party as some might like. Not every gun control law makes it to Gov. Tim Walz's desk, after all.
Unfortunately, there's still a long way to go before this particular case is settled. It's possible that at some point along the judicial chain, a judge will look at this differently and rule that the law is fine and should be enforced. I hope that doesn't happen, because even if binary triggers aren't everyday things, they're not something that should be prohibited.
The Second Amendment can and should come into play if this effort is unsuccessful. I have no doubt a new challenge will be leveled in federal court at that point, and then things get interesting. I'd love to say there's no way the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the state, but after some gun-related cases handled by this court, I can't make that assumption.
It's possible they'll rule that the ban is unconstitutional, especially in the aftermath of the Bruen decision, which laid down the history, text, and tradition standard for what gun laws can and can't be considered constitutional, but they may also find some bizarre way to rule that somehow rationalizes this.
I have my preference, but I'd rather just see it killed at the state level with this current challenge.
