New York bans the sale of firearms it classifies as assault weapons.

You cannot sell firearms classified as assault weapons into New York. 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 New York is not how you ship but which of your products may be sold there at all. This page covers how to identify which firearms you must block from that state, what happens when you ship where you should not, and how to set up the control inside Shopify that stops prohibited orders before they leave your warehouse.

What this means for your store

You must refuse orders for assault weapons from New York customers entirely. You cannot route them to a dealer, cannot ask the customer to pick them up elsewhere, and cannot label the order as a courtesy. The state's classification is strict, and shipping a prohibited firearm into New York is a civil and criminal liability that sits on you, not on your processor or payment provider. An order that gets through costs you criminal exposure, loss of your dealer licenses in other states, and permanent payment processor suspension. If you ship multi-state, you need to block these firearms by state at checkout or by product-level shipping profile. A note in your internal system is not a control — it fails when you are busy, when a customer service person is new, or when a fulfillment order is split across multiple shipments.

The control that actually enforces it

In a Shopify store, you control this with shipping profiles locked to product. Assign every assault weapon to a shipping profile that excludes New York entirely. Set this at the product level so it applies to every variant. For stores selling across multiple states, use Shopify Markets to set product availability by geography — if a product is not available in New York Markets, it will not appear to customers there at checkout. The harder path is a manual note or spreadsheet: it breaks under volume, under staff turnover, and under returns. A fulfillment error is the risk that forces you to rebuild this control correctly.

Why an underwriter cares

An acquirer flags shipping into a prohibited-product state as high-risk underwriting independent of the product itself. When a payment processor audits your store, they see orders shipping where sale is banned and read that as a control failure — not because they enforce state law, but because it signals operational sloppiness across your entire business. Underwriters want evidence that you block prohibited orders at the point of sale. A shipping profile or market availability setting that lives in Shopify is auditable. A mental note is not. Processors routinely terminate accounts for evidence of shipped orders to states that ban them, and MATCH records that termination against the owner for five years.

Frequently asked

Can I sell any firearms into New York?

Only those that do not fall under New York's assault weapons classification. Federal law routes all firearm sales through a licensed dealer regardless of state. In New York, the restriction is on which firearms can be sold there at all, not on how they are shipped. Check your product catalog against New York's definition. If you are uncertain which items qualify, you cannot assume they are legal.

What happens if I ship a prohibited firearm to a New York customer?

You face criminal and civil liability. The processor or payment provider does not enforce state firearms law — that liability is yours. Shipping a prohibited item is a control failure that triggers account termination at most processors and a five-year record against the owner under MATCH rules. You cannot recover from this by claiming the customer ordered it.

How do I block assault weapons from New York at checkout?

Use Shopify shipping profiles or Markets to exclude prohibited firearms from that state. Assign each prohibited product to a profile that does not ship to New York. In Markets, set product availability by geography. A spreadsheet or internal note does not work — the control must live in the platform so it stops the order automatically before payment.