Are Forced Reset Triggers Legal in Iowa?

Iowa Code chapter 724 defines a machine gun as a firearm that shoots or is designed to shoot more than one shot automatically, without manual reloading, through a single trigger function. The chapter does not separately identify forced-reset triggers.

Iowa's machine-gun provisions and federal-law cross-references still matter for automatic-fire conversion devices; they should not be generalized to every trigger that produces a faster semiautomatic cadence.

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.