State Legality MatrixForced Reset TriggersNew Jersey
Statute-cited, last verified 2026-07-28
Banned
No. Treated as a prohibited machine gun under New Jersey's broad state definition.
Controlling law: N.J. Stat. § 2C:39-1 (definition) & § 2C:39-5
Contested entry
New Jersey's machine-gun definition is broader than the federal NFA and the Attorney General treats FRTs as prohibited machine guns; trigger cranks and bump stocks are separately enumerated.
The statute in practice
New Jersey defines a machine gun as a firearm, mechanism, or instrument not requiring that the trigger be pressed for each shot. An FRT permits repeated shots while the shooter maintains rearward pressure, with the mechanism forcing a reset between rounds, and New Jersey authorities treat that operation as falling within the state's machine-gun provisions.
Possession of a machine gun without the required license is prohibited by N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5. New Jersey also separately regulates bump stocks and trigger cranks under P.L.2018, c.138, but those named-device provisions are not the basis for the FRT classification.
Timeline
In the legislature
Would establish criminal penalties for sale and possession of a machine gun conversion device as a separately defined offense.
What it means for you
Rare Breed Triggers lists New Jersey among the jurisdictions it will not ship to. The machine-gun restrictions provide no ordinary consumer grandfather provision for FRT possession.
Federal law
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 2026-07-28. 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.
Common questions
No. Treated as a prohibited machine gun under New Jersey's broad state definition. Controlling law: N.J. Stat. § 2C:39-1 (definition) & § 2C:39-5.
The controlling law is N.J. Stat. § 2C:39-1 (definition) & § 2C:39-5. Treated as a prohibited machine gun under New Jersey's broad state 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.
No. Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs I addressed specified semiautomatic rifles and magazines. It did not disturb the machine-gun definition in N.J.S.A. 2C:39-1 or the possession restriction in N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5, which are the provisions that reach FRTs.
No. New Jersey already treats FRTs as covered by its existing machine-gun provisions. S 1268 would add a separate machine-gun conversion-device offense on top of them.