Are Binary Triggers Legal in Iowa?

Iowa Code section 724.1(1)(a) classifies a machine gun as an offensive weapon and defines it as a firearm which shoots or is designed to shoot more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. A binary system fires one round on the pull and one on the release.

Section 724.29 separately makes it an aggravated misdemeanor to sell or offer for sale a manual or power-driven trigger activating device constructed and designed so that, when attached to a firearm, it increases the firearm's rate of fire. That section reaches sales and offers for sale, not possession, and does not name binary triggers.

Binary triggers are legal under federal law and are not machine guns under 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b); ATF treats the trigger pull and the trigger release as two separate functions of the trigger, so one round is fired per function. Cargill v. Garland (2024) concerned bump stocks, not binary triggers, and does not change this.

Federal baseline verified 2026-10-20. Scope: Binary triggers (Franklin Armory BFSIII and similar): fire one round on trigger pull and one on release. Forced reset triggers are a separate class.