I think it's reprehensible for the BATF to change its mind and leave Akins & his customers in the lurch.
I also think they goofed on their original decision--again reprehensible.
I agree with their second decision as much as it hurts to agree with the BATF. The device is clearly a machinegun.
The reason this gun is different from bump-firing is because in bump-firing the shooter operates the trigger for every shot. By pulling the gun forward (using the weak hand) into the trigger finger the shooter is actuating the trigger one time for each shot. It's just that he's holding the trigger finger still and moving the whole gun forward with his weak hand.
The Hellfire trigger is just a bump-firing facilitator. It still depends on the shooter to push the gun forward into the trigger finger, it just tunes things so that the normal forward rebound off the shooter's shoulder is sufficient to make it work (or at least sort of work
).
In the Akins device the device takes the place of the shooter's weak hand (or shoulder) which means that the Akins device pushes the trigger forward into the stationary finger and therefore the Akins device is what is actuating the trigger, not the shooter.
Anytime you have something firing the gun more than once without the shooter having to move more than once it's going to be ruled a machinegun. That's clearly the intent of the law and that's how the courts are going to rule.
I think that the BATF should remunerate all of Akins' customers and pay him some sort of damages for what their "change of mind" has cost him.