Are Forced Reset Triggers Legal in Indiana?

Indiana Code section 35-31.5-2-190 defines a machine gun as a weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Indiana does not add a separate forced-reset-trigger or general rate-of-fire-device definition.

The Indiana Supreme Court quoted that definition in a juvenile machine-gun possession case and noted that House Enrolled Act 1365 (2023) expanded it, for certain offenses and enhancements, to include frames, receivers, and conversion parts.

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.

Federal baseline verified 2026-10-20. 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.