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 protruding pistol grip, a thumbhole stock, a folding or telescoping stock, a grenade or flare launcher, a flash suppressor, or a forward pistol grip. A fixed magazine above 10 rounds or an overall length below 30 inches supplies separate paths into the definition.

A fixed magazine is an ammunition feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, the firearm so that it cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action. A semiautomatic pistol without a fixed magazine is covered with one of a threaded barrel, a second handgrip, a barrel shroud, or a magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip. A semiautomatic shotgun is covered if it has both a folding or telescoping stock and a pistol grip, thumbhole stock, or vertical handgrip, or if it does not have a fixed magazine.

On July 1, 2026 the Ninth Circuit vacated submission of Miller v. Bonta, the challenge to the assault weapons law, to await the Supreme Court's decision in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, which are set for argument on December 2, 2026.

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 by the courts 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. Garland v. Cargill (2024) held that a bump stock is not a machine gun under federal law. Feature bans are entirely a matter of state law.

Federal baseline verified 2026-10-20. 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.