Are Forced Reset Triggers Legal in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania's prohibited-offensive-weapons statute, 18 Pa.C.S. section 908, includes machine guns and supplies defenses tied to registration, authorization, or other lawful purpose. It does not separately name forced-reset triggers or generic rate-increasing-trigger devices.

The relevant mechanical boundary remains whether a device produces automatic fire that places the resulting weapon or conversion part within an existing regulated category.

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.