By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Skyeler “Bleau” Jackson, 24, says he is the first person ever charged with an eight-year-old Florida statute that may prohibit the possession of Forced Reset Triggers, or FRTs, which are completely legal in most other free states.
He may be right.
FRTs have long been a frequent target of the anti-gun media, which falsely claimed they turned rifles into machineguns. Thankfully, federal law now makes them legal, but a Florida state law still bans FRTs in the Sunshine State.
Florida’s poorly written statute certainly hasn’t been used much since 2018 when then-Governor Rick Scott—now a U.S. Senator—signed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which created the law.
FRTs aren’t even mentioned in the statute, which bans “bump-fire stocks” as well as anything else that can “alter the rate of fire of a firearm to mimic automatic weapon fire or which is used to increase the rate of fire to a faster rate than is possible for a person to fire such semiautomatic firearm unassisted by a kit, a tool, an accessory, or a device.”
Whether FRTs are even illegal in Florida is a judgement call, which in Jackson’s case was made by investigators working for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
No one from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office even told Jackson what he allegedly did wrong, as he sat in their county jail for nine days last February.
No one from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office was even willing to discuss his case: Calls and emails for this story were not returned.
Jaskson, a native Texan who lives in San Antonio, learned in court that he faces up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if he is convicted of two counts of violating the “bump-fire stock” statute for selling FRTs to “undercover” sheriff’s deputies at a West Palm Beach gun show.
“I was arrested February 11th. The warrant was signed. There were three charges: Two counts of possession of a bump stock and one count of possession of a firearm in commission of a felony, which was dropped,” Jackson said. “I didn’t have any bump stocks. I am the first person ever charged with that statute since the law has been in place. Essentially, they made a huge mistake.”
The arrest
Jackson sold a few FRTs at a West Palm Beach gun show in early February. He was stopped in his dad’s car near the event.
“The deputy told me I had a taillight out. He said, ‘Can I show you?’ I got out and he arrested me and like 14 cars pulled up—all blacked-out SUVs. There were five cops on me. They took off my jewelry and asked me if I had any explosives, like I was some kind of terrorist. There was one guy in charge. He was wearing a fisherman’s shirt. He asked if there were any guns in the car—after I had just left a gun show. That was the beginning of the end of it,” Jackson said.
There wasn’t much of an interrogation during the car stop. The detective in charge offered only confusing questions.
“He said the only way I was gonna get out of it was if I could name gang members. Gang members? I’m from Texas. I told him I didn’t know anything about that,” Jackson said. “He told me I was going to jail, and my bond would be around $2,000, which was total BS.”
Palm Beach County deputies took Jackson to their jail, where he was stripped, searched, fingerprinted and photographed. He ended up in a holding cell with another inmate. The next day he was taken to his bond hearing. He waited his turn and watched inmate after inmate appear before the judge. Almost all had been arrested for battering their spouse. Their bonds were $200 or nothing at all.
“Then it was my turn. The prosecutor said, ‘Look at all these bump stocks we’ve recovered’—I never had a single bump stock. My bond was going to be $175,000, but my attorney negotiated it down to $70,000,” Jackson said.
Jackson was able to secure his release after spending nine days in the county jail.
“They never told me what I was supposed to have done wrong,” he said. “I don’t think the judge even knew what the statute was or what it meant.”
According to Sheriff’s Office reports, deputies were working “undercover” at the gun show when they were told that a vendor—Jackson—was selling FRTs.
Jackson reportedly had a video at his booth that showed how the triggers operated. Reports claim he told the “undercover” investigators that the FRTs were easy to install on their firearms. He also showed them documents on his phone that proved they were legal.
Florida lawmakers introduced a bill during the last legislative session that would have repealed section 790.222—the “bump-fire stock” statute. Unfortunately, the bill died in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee
For now, the charges against Jackson stand.
Takeaways
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has spent 53 years in law enforcement. At 78 years old, he is one of the oldest active law enforcement officials in the country.
While most Florida sheriffs are Republicans, Bradshaw is a registered Democrat, which may explain why he would prioritize gun-show enforcement.
Jackson has been studying the charges he faces since his arrest.
He has been told the “undercover” deputies took a video of the actual sale, but he hasn’t seen it yet.
Said Jackson: “My big takeaway is that I don’t have a takeaway yet. When this is all over, I’ll have it. I’m not bitter, I just want to know more or less why I was targeted for FRTs, especially in Florida.”
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