Massachusetts bans certain firearms it classifies as assault weapons.
You cannot sell firearms that Massachusetts classifies as assault weapons into that state. There is no federal assault weapons ban — the 1994 law expired in 2004 — so this prohibition is state-level only. Your catalog may include models that are legal everywhere else but prohibited in Massachusetts. Since federal law already requires every firearm sale to flow through a licensed dealer, the question is not how you ship; it is which of your products may be sold there at all. This page covers how to identify what you cannot sell, what happens if you try, and how to prove to an underwriter that you know the difference.
Massachusetts bans the sale of firearms it classifies as assault weapons. There is no federal ban — the 1994 law expired in 2004 and was never renewed — so this is a state-level prohibition on part of your catalog.
Federal law already routes every firearm sale through a licensed dealer, so the question in Massachusetts is not how you ship but which of your products may be sold there at all.
Source: Gun Laws by State — assault weapons ban states (2026) · as of 2026-07. Rules in this area change, and this is not legal advice — verify the current position for every state you ship into before you rely on it.
What this means for your store
If you sell firearms, you must identify which models in your catalog Massachusetts classifies as assault weapons and block those products from sale into the state. You cannot ship a prohibited firearm to a Massachusetts customer even if they have a license. A customer in another state can order any product; a Massachusetts customer cannot. If you ship a prohibited firearm into Massachusetts, you expose yourself to state enforcement action and you signal to your payment processor and underwriter that you do not know your own compliance obligations. This is an underwriting red flag independent of whether the transaction completed. The cost of getting this wrong is processor review, account restriction, or termination. Your job is mechanical and non-negotiable: classify your own SKUs first, then enforce that classification at checkout.
The control that actually enforces it
In Shopify, use per-product shipping profiles or market-level restrictions to block prohibited firearms from sale in Massachusetts. You can flag each affected SKU with a metafield that prevents checkout in that state, or configure your sales channel to exclude those products from Massachusetts. The weakness in any control is a spreadsheet or a note in someone's head. If the rule lives only in memory, a new team member will ship a prohibited item. If it lives only in a document, your processor cannot verify it exists. The control must be a live setting in your store — visible to your payment gateway and auditable by an underwriter — or it does not exist as far as compliance goes.
Why an underwriter cares
An underwriter reviewing your store sees your shipping geography and your product catalog together. If you ship firearms into Massachusetts, they will check whether those products are prohibited there. Shipping a banned item into a state is a compliance failure independent of the product category itself, and it signals that your catalog review is manual or absent. An acquirer wants to see automated product-level restrictions that prevent the sale from ever reaching checkout. That is what proves you know your own rules. A store without that control looks like a compliance liability, even if the specific transaction was intercepted by the licensed dealer. The processor cares because it is their chargeback and their regulatory risk, not yours.
Frequently asked
Can I sell any firearms in Massachusetts?
Only those that Massachusetts does not classify as assault weapons. Since there is no federal assault weapons ban, the state list is your constraint. You must audit your catalog against the Massachusetts definition and block prohibited models at the product level before any customer in that state can order.
What happens if I ship a prohibited firearm to Massachusetts by mistake?
The licensed dealer on the receiving end may refuse the shipment, and the state may initiate enforcement against you. Your payment processor will also view this as a compliance failure, because you shipped into a state that prohibits the product. This creates underwriting risk even if the transaction never completed.
How do I prove to my underwriter that I control which firearms I sell into Massachusetts?
Show a live, product-level restriction in your Shopify store that prevents prohibited firearms from being ordered by Massachusetts customers. A shipping profile, a market restriction, or a metafield-based rule in your checkout all work. A spreadsheet or a policy document does not; the underwriter needs to see an automated control they can verify in your system.
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Your existing store is only ever read from — we never write to it. Everything else about selling firearms: the payments position, the reserve to expect and who underwrites it →