So Long AutoGlove, We Barely Knew Ya – ATF Labels it a ‘Machine Gun’

Current Events Industry News Max Slowik This Week

The ATF is shutting down the AutoGlove. What is the AutoGlove? Announced just a few weeks ago, the AutoGlove is a glove that simulates fully automatic fire with firearms, airsoft and paintball guns and even nailguns.

So Long AutoGlove, We Barely Knew Ya – ATF Labels it a 'Machine Gun'

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The problem is that it simulates fully automatic fire a little too well, the ATF says. The ATF has determined that the device isn’t a glove, it’s a machine gun. While the AutoGlove company disagrees with the ATF determination, they’re the little guys in this and aren’t going to fight it.

“While we are still confused as to how the AutoGlove violates the plain language of the laws cited by the ATF, we are a small company and do not have the resources to appeal the ATFs decision and will cancel the AutoGlove project effective immediately,” said the gadget’s makers in response.

“The AutoGlove was not tested by the ATF with these same restrictions and for this reason, we believe this maybe partially why we received the unfavorable determination.”

Citing a 1988 determination, the ATF claims that the AutoGlove is no different than an electric solenoid attached to a gun to electronically operate the trigger.

The glove makers maintain that the device is not a machine gun because it’s not attached to or part of any gun. Also, it’s not just for rapidly shooting firearms — the mechanical trigger finger can pull triggers wherever triggers are found, from toys to tools.

“The firearm is never modified and the AutoGlove does not replace any of the manufactures parts on the gun. Although we could not find the definition for gun ‘part’ we do not believe the glove is a ‘part’ and we believe the glove is designed to be worn, affixed, attached to a persons [sic] hand.”

So Long AutoGlove, We Barely Knew Ya – ATF Labels it a 'Machine Gun'

The Autoglove. The ATF says it’s a machine gun.

The AutoGlove features a powered trigger finger that cycles once it’s turned on. The motorized finger can pull a trigger fast, cycling between 600 and 1000 times per minute.

See Also: ATF Reverses Stance! Shoulder that Brace All You Want

Anyone who purchased a set of gloves will receive a refund, by way of credit or paper check. The device was announced late July and was set to ship now.

The handful of buyers who have already received their gloves are instructed to destroy them and return the serialized part as proof. The gloves were originally priced around $350.

Ultimately the team wants the ATF to do a better job of framing their often confusing and sometimes incomprehensible or nonsensical determination language.

“We would however, ask that the ATF publish definitions of the following terms so someone else does not waste thousands of dollars developing something that appears to meet the ‘plain language’ of the law,” they said.

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  • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:45 am

    Then again, this glove would probably sell well in an X-rated boutique or theatre?

  • Joe Colt October 12, 2018, 6:32 am

    Just because you can make something doesn’t mean its a good idea. Pounding rounds down range to play machine gun might be a little fun albeit it expensive. The glove really plays no real purpose in self defense or hunting. Why risk some nut job doing a repeat of Las Vegas. The real expansion of useful firearms products going beyond what was once verboten is happening and ATF has not stepped in to stop. This would be the new 14″ barrel shotguns.

    We live in a world that wants to take away our 2nd Amendment, why give the boobs another stick to beat us with for no reason.

    • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:26 am

      Spoken like a true and liberty living Patriot?

  • Donnie Steen October 13, 2017, 1:02 am

    SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED…….!!??!!
    I GIVE YOU THE BATFE!!!

  • Jonny5 October 1, 2017, 5:11 pm

    What a pile of shite. A glove that helps you spunk off ammo even quicker and with less accuracy. Buy one for your next “Live to Brass Conversion Course”.

    • Dave Hicks October 4, 2017, 1:33 pm

      Want to shoot fast ? Don’t need a glove < Read Ed Mcgivern's book fast and fancy shooting

  • Douglas White September 30, 2017, 3:50 pm

    THE atf NEEDS TO GO.

  • Ky September 30, 2017, 9:37 am

    If anything, this company may have screwed over anyone who wants to make one. Since they came out with a product on the market, they got the attention of the ATF. Now the ATF will probably draft a new law banning that type of mechanism. This is the kind of thing where you need to ask yourself if it’s really worth risking your rights by bringing a new cool thing to the market. These guys could have simply made a few for themselves and had a great time. But instead they jumped into the spotlight and got shot down, and probably took the future of the legality of these mechanisms down with them. If I could see some practical purpose of the glove that gave civilians a force multiplier in the face of a foreign or domestic enemy, then I could consider what these guys were doing as a patriotic duty to the rest of us. But it simply is quite useless, and the guys were just trying to make a buck(good on them), but I don’t think they gave much thought to the implications of their actions. Personally I don’t care about the glove. It’s tacky. Meant for Joe Shmoe nut-job who has no class. I do, however, care about the mechanism for pulling the trigger, as it could be used in other fashions that aren’t useless. But these guys may have ruined it for the rest of us.

    • John Nicolay October 6, 2017, 3:00 pm

      I couldn’t agree more. Let things like this pass by word of mouth and not in print!

    • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:30 am

      “Since they came out with a product on the market, they got the attention of the ATF.”

      ALL ITEMS gun-like, when produced are sent to the ATF for approval.

  • Todd September 29, 2017, 7:39 pm

    Is it a machine gun?
    Of course not – that is to say that if someone is not within a hundred miles of any firearm but has the glove, one is in possession of a machine gun.
    Or, equally silly, if one has the glove and a single shot H&R, the H&R by association is an MG in total or as a component.
    Now – if one owns a glove one is certainly guilty of being tragically stupid but I don’t think that that is actionable, even by the ATF.

    Todd.

  • Colonialgirl September 29, 2017, 4:53 pm

    SO, according to the atf (All Tragic Failures) I can put on one of these gloves, point my finger at someone and have it fire 600 rounds per minute. UN HUH; WHat Caliber is it shooting? How long is the barrel; how big is the magazine?
    ALL nothing more than liberal moronic government agency in operation.

  • Scott Gray September 29, 2017, 4:28 pm

    So, a mechanical glove is a machine gun? First, that is not logical whatsoever. Would a modern prosthetic hand also be considered a machine gun? Its mechanical, it pulls the trigger.

  • gary September 29, 2017, 2:12 pm

    Look at 0:55 in the video, the round jambs in the weapon. What a poorly produced video.

    • Tysver September 29, 2017, 10:50 pm

      Wow you’re right, I miss it even less now.

  • Frank September 29, 2017, 1:28 pm

    With the cost of ammo, who in hell can afford to shoot full auto anyway? That being said, the ratifiers of the 2nd Amendment meant for civilians to be able to own anything the military has!

  • Norm Fishler September 29, 2017, 12:13 pm

    As Colonel Jeff was famously quoted as saying, “An ingenious solution to a non-existent problem.” I do not care much for the ATF’s ruling either, but it’s what they do & we may as well resign ourselves to it. Personally, I think a much better solution would have been to stand aside & let this stupid idea die on its own.

    • Freida G. September 29, 2017, 3:20 pm

      Here, Here..Well said..

  • John September 29, 2017, 9:21 am

    If I ran a company that had an idea that was rejected I would put the drawings on the web and make it open source. Try to infringe on my rights then!

    • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:36 am

      You may want to follow Cody Wilson’s, Defense Distributed and the 2nd Amendment Foundation’s case about their rights to do just that with making printable guns free and open-source.

  • Cea September 29, 2017, 8:55 am

    Uh, what about the a$$hats shooting the pistols in the video, who couldn’t hold the gun level…sending rounds up above and beyond the berm…at the sky?
    It seems like it was going to be pretty safe at the local range…NOT!

    • Alan September 29, 2017, 10:30 am

      Oh PLEASE!
      That has nothing to do with the glove, that’s the operator. No different than a semi or full auto firearm.
      I’ve seen idiots with BAR’s in rapid fire doing that.

  • Brad M September 29, 2017, 8:22 am

    Like the minigun where the user depresses a button and as long as they are holding it down, there goes your mortgage in the form of hot lead out the front and hot brass out of the side. No real surprise here since ‘semi-automatic’ is defined as “one round is expended for every manipulation of the trigger”. I have always thought that even three round burst was a waste. I love the control and accuracy of the binary triggers available that allow you to send one to two rounds in quick succession downrange.
    yes ATF = an infringement, but until politicians / lawmakers see that, this one was a no brainer. That’s probably how they figured it out.

    • Lance September 29, 2017, 4:42 pm

      Um, one round is expended with every manipulation of the trigger with the auto glove.

      • Jonny5 October 1, 2017, 5:22 pm

        Um, one round expended very quickly with every very quick trigger pull… not under control.

        • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:39 am

          Where does it say anything about “control” in that clause?

  • Nick Carroll September 29, 2017, 7:59 am

    Honestly, who cares? The idea was ridiculous to begin with. Who in their right mind would wear this into any kind of realistic situation? Yeah, it’s cute,…but seriously?

    • Cyrus September 29, 2017, 10:11 am

      . . . exactly what I was thinking! Who the F Cares, this is stupid!

  • Kyle September 29, 2017, 7:55 am

    Glad that stupid concept was short lived. Yeah I hate the ATF too, but that is beside the point. Its just another mechanism made to appeal to those idiots who have a hard-on for spraying bullets. Learn to move your trigger finger quicker. The last thing we need are people filing even more complaints with the local cops about “automatic gunfire” when mall-commando Jimmy dumps 10 mags into nothing in fast succession.

    • Rich September 29, 2017, 8:25 am

      People need to learn to mind their own business. As long as it isn’t hurting anyone, or causing a definite hazard to public safety (i.e., discharging into the air – those bullets have to come down SOMEWHERE – or in the direction of houses and other buildings), who cares how someone has fun with their firearms? I used to enjoy mag dumps when I could afford to waste the ammo…

      • kyle September 29, 2017, 10:56 am

        Yes I agree, but in this case I suggest making one yourself. It’s not that hard to rig up something just like it. If you aren’t concerned it will bother anyone then there shouldn’t be any concern about anyone “catching you” with it. It has no place in any environment other than remote wilderness. But I guarantee you they’d be used in backyard ranges on the outskirts of towns everywhere. Yes that would cause problems.

        • Gregory Romeu January 24, 2021, 5:42 am

          And if these gloves were engineered to allow disabled persons their rights to keep and bare arms and the ability to shoot?

  • Jay September 29, 2017, 7:18 am

    Just one more reason the ATF needs to be done away with! Absolutely no common sense to anything they do, it’s all about abuse of power and controlling the masses with restrictions of our rights!!

    • BigB September 29, 2017, 9:51 am

      Impractical idea. It was a toy at best

  • roger September 29, 2017, 5:17 am

    The Fostech and Franklin binary triggers are ATF legal. They work.

  • BUURGAb September 29, 2017, 2:51 am

    With the speed an AR15 trigger can be fast squeezed, auto fire seems to be mainly a way to go broke buying ammo. There are just not that many situations where this gadget would be even necessary.

  • JW September 23, 2017, 7:32 am

    So put a $200 stamp on the glove and shoot any gun full auto, but I am sure that won’t fly either.

    • JLW September 29, 2017, 9:45 am

      Actually, still no. You can’t just buy a new machine gun with the purchase of a tax stamp and a year wait. They have to have been produced and registered before 1986. That’s why they cost $15-20,000. That is the whole reason stupid inventions like this, slide-fire stocks, etc. ever get thought of.

  • Steve Day September 22, 2017, 1:16 pm

    I can see why it was banned…

    Unlike the slide-fire stock, the operator’s finger is not the part doing the trigger pulling. – It’s that simple.

    • BUURGAb September 29, 2017, 2:48 am

      Yes, that would seem to the reasoning behind the ban, Of course, the problem many people have is the ATF even existing, let alone banning anything.

      • Rich September 29, 2017, 8:27 am

        BATF = Bureau for the Absolute Termination of Freedom

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