Does California Have an Assault Weapons Ban?

California Penal Code section 30515 uses different tests for rifles, pistols, and shotguns. For a semiautomatic centerfire rifle that does not have a fixed magazine, one listed feature is enough; a fixed magazine above 10 rounds or an overall length below 30 inches supplies separate paths into the definition.

A fixed magazine must be contained in or permanently attached to the firearm so that it cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action. Section 30515 also supplies distinct one-feature tests for semiautomatic pistols and shotguns, so a rifle-only feature checklist cannot be reused for every host.

There has been no federal assault weapons ban since the 1994 ban expired in 2004; no feature restrictions apply federally to semi-automatic rifles or pistols. The 2023 ATF pistol-brace rule was vacated nationwide and is not enforced, but federal SBR classification for a brace-equipped firearm still turns on whether the specific weapon is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder. Cargill v. Garland (2024) made bump stocks federally legal. Feature bans are entirely a matter of state law.

Scope: State laws restricting semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns by configuration features: threaded barrels, pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks, flash suppressors, forward grips, and similar. Magazine capacity limits are tracked as a separate class.