Are Forced Reset Triggers Legal in North Dakota?

North Dakota defines a machine gun by whether the weapon fires, is designed to fire, or can readily be restored to fire automatically without requiring the trigger to be pressed for each shot. The definition focuses on repeated fire without a new press.

The legislature has also demonstrated that trigger mechanics can be treated separately: the 2019 definition expressly excluded a binary trigger that fires one round on pull and one on release. Forced-reset triggers are not separately named.

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.