Does this mean a disassembled full auto trigger can be sold as a parts kit ?
If it is defined that way. And, that's part of the problem, who defines what something is?? The people who made it??? (the most commonly used definition) or the people who's job it is to regulate it? (the ATF/govt definitions)
You can call it bureaucratic overreach, or mission creep, or even kingdom making, but never forget that the people who make the regulations and define and enforce them do so because it is their JOB, and therefore, have a personal stake in the matter.
So, everything that increases their area of responsibility is a good thing, FOR THEM. But usually not so much for the rest of us.
So, back to the trigger. DEFINE a "full auto trigger" please.
Can you? I know a fair bit about how firearms and even full auto firearms work, and I can't define a "full auto" trigger, and be honest about it.
And that is yet another part of the problem. One could say "its a full auto trigger, because it came out of a full auto weapon", but that is glaringly simplistic and while grammatically correct, its not mechanically correct, generally.
Yes, there are systems where the is some mechanicial difference between the trigger of the select fire and semi auto only variants, but none that alter the function of the trigger, only its ability to interact with other parts needed to function as a full auto. Absent ALL those other parts (and this includes the "housing" to position them correctly), you don't get full auto fire.
The LAW defines a machine gun by function. REGULATIONs define "machine gun parts" by what ever definition gives the defining agency the most authority.
Back in the 80s the ATF decided that the M16 auto sear was, in and of itself, legally a machine gun. They even had a cut off date (1986) when it went into effect, and any auto sear made after that date, was all by itself a machine gun, and required the same tax and registration as an operable machine gun. Get that? ONE LITTLE PART without any other parts, a part incapable of doing anything by itself, that one part was regulated as a machine gun.
The LAW defines machine gun as being capable of firing more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. The ATF seems to define it as any thing we say it is, so we can regulate it.
The ATF should have been spanked (and hard) back then, but they weren't, and they have been extending, widening, and repaving that road ever since.
NOW, we are getting a few court rulings, here and there, that essentially say, "you can't do that". Hopefully this will continue, creating the potential for righting the wrongs of the past, or at least preventing those wrongs from being perpetuated in the future. We'll see where it goes.