Boston Gun Laws: Licensing, Storage, and Carry Limits

Boston gun laws stack city ordinances on top of Massachusetts state law and federal firearms rules, and the result is one of the strictest regulatory environments in the country. To legally own a firearm in the city you need a license issued by the Boston Police Department, you have to store the gun according to specific rules the moment you set it down at home, and a 2024 state reform law added new prohibited locations, a ghost gun ban, and tighter assault weapon rules. Here is what you need to know before you buy, carry, or move a firearm in Boston.

The Two Massachusetts Licenses

Every Boston resident who possesses a firearm or ammunition needs one of two permits. Which one you need depends on what you want to own and whether you plan to carry in public.

The License to Carry (LTC) is the broader permit. It covers handguns, rifles, and shotguns, including large capacity models, and it is the only license that allows concealed carry of a handgun in public. Massachusetts no longer issues the older Class A and Class B versions. New applicants receive a single unified LTC. If you still hold a Class B, it stays valid until it expires but limits you to non-large-capacity firearms and open carry.

The Firearms Identification Card (FID) is more limited. An FID lets you buy and carry rifles and shotguns that are neither large capacity nor semi-automatic. It does not cover handguns, any semi-automatic long gun, or anything classified as large capacity. The one exception: an FID holder can shoot a large capacity or semi-automatic firearm at an incorporated shooting club or licensed range if an LTC holder is directly supervising.¹

Who Cannot Own a Firearm

Before you think about Massachusetts licensing, federal law under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) bars several categories of people from possessing any firearm or ammunition. No state license overrides these prohibitions. The categories include:²

Anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison.
Fugitives from justice.
Unlawful users of or addicts to any controlled substance, including marijuana regardless of state legalization.
Anyone adjudicated as mentally defective or committed to a mental institution.
Anyone subject to a qualifying domestic violence restraining order or convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
Anyone dishonorably discharged from the military.
Anyone who has renounced U.S. citizenship.
People unlawfully in the United States or admitted under most nonimmigrant visas.

The Marijuana Problem

This one catches Boston residents repeatedly. Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana, but federal law still classifies it as a controlled substance, and anyone who uses it is a prohibited person under § 922(g)(3).² When you buy a firearm from a licensed dealer you fill out ATF Form 4473, which asks whether you use any controlled substance and specifically warns that marijuana use is illegal under federal law regardless of state legalization. Lying on that form is a separate federal offense. There is no workaround.

How to Apply for a License in Boston

The Boston Police Department’s Licensing Unit handles every LTC and FID application for city residents.

Training and Documents

Before you contact the Licensing Unit you need a firearms safety certificate from a course taught by an instructor certified through the State Police. Active military personnel are exempt.³ Bring the following to your appointment:⁴

Your firearms safety certificate (or a Massachusetts hunting safety course certificate).
Proof of identity: birth certificate, U.S. passport, or certificate of citizenship.
Proof of Boston residency: Massachusetts driver’s license or state ID with a Boston address.
Permanent resident alien card or naturalization papers, if applicable.
Business documents with a Boston address, if applying for business purposes.

The Appointment and Fee

You schedule an in-person appointment at Boston Police Headquarters, One Schroeder Plaza, first floor. During the visit you are fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed, and the department runs a background check. The application fee is $100, cash or money order only, and non-refundable whether you are approved or denied.⁴

State law gives the licensing authority up to 40 days to process an application. In practice, Boston frequently runs longer, so expect to wait several weeks beyond the statutory deadline for a decision in the mail. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling, Massachusetts shifted toward a “shall issue” model, which gives the Boston licensing authority less latitude to deny on subjective suitability grounds than it had before.

Assault Weapons, Large Capacity Firearms, and Ghost Guns

Two assault weapon bans operate in Boston at the same time, and the stricter one controls.

The city’s own ban, Chapter 596 of the Acts of 1989, prohibits selling, possessing, or transferring assault weapons, large capacity magazines, and large capacity ammunition belts within city limits. It also bans parts designed to convert a rifle or shotgun into an assault weapon, and any combination of parts under one person’s control that could be assembled into one.⁵ A rifle that is legal in a rural Massachusetts town can get you arrested the moment you bring it into Boston.

Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024 then tightened the state ban. Massachusetts now prohibits possessing, selling, or importing any assault-style firearm or large capacity feeding device statewide. If you lawfully owned an assault-style firearm before August 1, 2024, you may keep it only if you hold an LTC and register the weapon through the state’s new firearms registration system, and the weapon must be serialized.⁶ The Attorney General treats “copies” and “duplicates” of named assault rifles as prohibited even when manufacturers change the model name or swap cosmetic features.⁷

The “large capacity” designation itself is broader than most people expect. Under Massachusetts law, a firearm is large capacity if it is a semi-automatic with a built-in magazine holding more than ten rounds (or more than five shotgun shells), if it is a semi-automatic that can accept a detachable magazine over ten rounds and you possess both the gun and that magazine, if it has a rotating cylinder accepting more than ten rounds (or five shotgun shells), or if it is classified as assault-style. Manual bolt, pump, lever, and slide-action firearms are excluded, as are single-shot firearms and antiques that cannot fire a projectile.⁸ The designation attaches to the gun itself based on what it can accept, not on whether the magazine is actually loaded.

The 2024 law also criminalized unserialized firearms. Manufacturing, selling, or transferring a ghost gun in Massachusetts now carries a sentence of one to one-and-a-half years, every firearm manufactured or assembled in the state must be serialized and registered, and unlicensed individuals cannot use 3D printers to produce firearms or firearm components.⁹

How You Must Store Your Firearms

Massachusetts has some of the strictest firearm storage rules in the country. Every firearm must be secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock that renders it inoperable to anyone except you or another authorized user. A gun you are physically carrying or have under direct control does not need to be locked, but the storage rule applies the moment you set it down at home.¹⁰

Penalties scale with the type of weapon and whether a minor could reach it:

Standard firearm with no minor access: $1,000 to $7,500 fine, up to one and a half years in jail, or both.
Large capacity or semi-automatic weapon: $2,000 to $15,000 fine, one and a half to twelve years in prison, or both.
Any firearm accessible to someone under 18: $2,500 to $15,000 for standard firearms, $10,000 to $20,000 for large capacity weapons, with mandatory minimum prison sentences of one and a half to four years respectively.

A storage violation also counts as evidence of reckless conduct in any civil or criminal case if a minor accesses the gun and someone is hurt or killed.¹⁰ Leaving a handgun in an unlocked nightstand drawer is a criminal offense in Massachusetts.

Where You Cannot Carry

A valid LTC does not let you carry everywhere. Several overlapping rules put large parts of the city off-limits.

Schools

Massachusetts law bars anyone other than a law enforcement officer from carrying a firearm, loaded or unloaded, in any school building, on school grounds, or on school transportation. The rule covers elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities. Your LTC does not exempt you. You need written authorization from the school board or the officer in charge to bring a firearm onto school property, and a violation carries a fine of up to $1,000, up to two years in jail, or both.¹¹ The federal Gun-Free School Zones Act adds a 1,000-foot buffer around schools, with a general exemption for people licensed in the state where the school sits.¹²

Government Buildings and Polling Places

The 2024 reform added a sweeping list of “prohibited areas.” You cannot carry a firearm in any building, parking area, or grounds owned, leased, or controlled by state, county, or municipal government when the space is used for government administration, court proceedings, or correctional services. Polling places during elections are specifically included, and municipalities can designate their own administrative buildings as prohibited.⁶

Post Offices and Federal Property

Post offices trip people up constantly. No one may carry or store a firearm on U.S. Postal Service property, openly or concealed, except for official law enforcement purposes. The federal facility weapons ban carries up to one year in prison, rising to five years if the weapon was intended for use in a crime.¹³

Red Flag Orders

Massachusetts allows courts to temporarily strip firearm rights from someone who poses a risk of causing bodily injury. A petition for an extreme risk protection order can be filed by the local firearms licensing authority or by a family or household member, a category that includes current and former spouses, people who live or have lived together, blood relatives, co-parents, and current or former dating partners.

If the court issues the order, the person must immediately surrender all licenses, firearms, ammunition, and stun guns to the police department that serves the order, which holds them for the duration of the order. Refusing to surrender is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, up to two and a half years in jail, or both. The process can move quickly and without prior notice to the subject.

Transporting a Firearm Through Boston

If you are passing through Massachusetts with a firearm, federal law under 18 U.S.C. § 926A gives you narrow safe-passage protection. You may transport a firearm from one place where you can legally possess it to another such place, even through a stricter state, but only under these conditions:¹⁴

The firearm must be completely unloaded.
Neither the firearm nor any ammunition can be readily accessible from the passenger compartment.
In vehicles without a separate trunk, both the firearm and ammunition must be in a locked container other than the glove box or center console.

Safe passage covers transit only. If you stop in Boston for anything beyond fuel or a brief rest, every city and state firearm law applies to you. The protection also does not help you if you are already a prohibited person under federal law.

If Your License Is Denied

If the Boston Police Department denies your LTC or FID, you can file a petition for judicial review in district court within 90 days of the denial letter. At the hearing a judge evaluates whether the licensing decision was arbitrary and capricious, and you can testify, present evidence, and call witnesses. If the district court upholds the denial, you can continue through the Superior Court.

If the denial is based on a federal NICS background check rather than the local authority’s own call, the appeal runs through the FBI’s NICS Section instead, either electronically or by mail. If a state agency conducted the background check, the challenge goes to that state agency; the FBI will not overturn a state-level denial.¹⁵

1
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140 Section 129B
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 922 – Unlawful Acts
3
Mass.gov. Firearms Safety
4
Boston Police Department. Apply for a License to Carry
5
City of Boston. Chapter 596 – An Act Relative to Assault Weapons in the City of Boston
6
General Court of Massachusetts. Acts of 2024 Chapter 135
7
Mass.gov. Enforcing the Massachusetts Assault Weapons Ban
8
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140 Section 121
9
Mass.gov. Governor Healey Signs Gun Safety Legislation Cracking Down on Ghost Guns, Strengthening Violence Prevention
10
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140 Section 131L
11
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 Section 10
12
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Gun Free School Zones Act
13
United States Postal Service. Possession of Firearms and Other Dangerous Weapons on Postal Service Property Is Prohibited by Law
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 926A – Interstate Transportation of Firearms
15
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Requesting Reason for and/or Challenging a NICS-Related Denial