Are Forced Reset Triggers Legal in Arkansas?

Arkansas's Uniform Machine Gun Act uses a distinctive definition: a machine gun is a weapon from which more than five shots may be rapidly, automatically, or semiautomatically discharged from a magazine by a single function of the firing device. The chapter does not separately define forced-reset triggers or rate-increasing trigger devices.

The more-than-five-shots and single-function elements should be applied as written rather than replaced with the federal automatic-fire definition.

Under the 2025 DOJ settlement with Rare Breed Triggers, an FRT fires one round per trigger function and is not an NFA machine gun federally. The settlement covers rifles and grip-forward pistols; it does not extend to grip-fed handguns (Glock, S&W M&P, Canik), whose federal FRT status remains less settled. State bans operate independently of federal law through broader state machine-gun, trigger-activator, or rate-of-fire definitions.

Scope: Forced reset triggers (Rare Breed FRT-15, Dairyland Defender, and similar) and forced-reset selectors (AR Super Safety, ARC-Fire). One round per trigger function. Binary triggers are a separate class.