Search interest in “Glock switches” is huge, and most of what people find is wrong. Here is the straight version: a switch is a machine gun under federal law, owning one is a serious federal felony, and it is a completely different thing from the semi-automatic trigger parts sold on this site.
A Glock switch — also called an auto sear or selector switch — is a small device fitted to the rear of a Glock slide that trips the firing mechanism repeatedly, so the pistol keeps firing while the trigger is held down.
Under the National Firearms Act and 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), a machine gun is any weapon that fires more than one shot with a single function of the trigger, and any part designed to convert a weapon into one. That second half matters: the switch itself is legally a machine gun, whether or not it is attached to a pistol.
Possession of an unregistered machine gun is a federal felony carrying up to 10 years in prison and substantial fines. Because civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 1986 is closed off entirely, a switch cannot be registered, taxed, or made legal after the fact.
Prosecutors also routinely add charges — possession in furtherance of another offence, importation, or distribution — and 3D-printing or machining one is manufacturing, not a loophole.
There is no state where a post-1986 auto sear is lawful for an ordinary civilian. State law can add penalties on top of the federal ones, but it cannot subtract them.
A forced reset trigger (FRT) replaces the trigger shoe and adds a reset component that mechanically pushes the trigger forward after each shot. The critical difference is that the trigger must be pulled again for each round fired. One function of the trigger, one shot.
That is what makes an FRT a semi-automatic component rather than a machine gun conversion device. It shortens the mechanical reset; it does not fire on its own.
Forced reset triggers have been through several rounds of federal enforcement action and litigation, with the government's position shifting more than once and courts reaching different conclusions along the way. The result is a genuinely changeable legal landscape rather than a settled one.
Separately, several states restrict or prohibit rapid-fire trigger devices under their own statutes, regardless of the federal position. Those state rules are often written broadly and are not identical to each other.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Before buying any trigger component, check the current federal position and the law in your own state — and if you are unsure, ask a firearms attorney in your jurisdiction rather than a forum.