Maryland is a legally-complex state. There are a number of restrictions on any given firearm that do not apply to other states. We aim to provide as much detail as possible, while directing you to relevant government resources.
Maryland Firearm Licensing Portal – This portal gives you the Maryland Handgun Roster and services licensing and the filling out of forms such as the 77r (purchasing regulated item like pistol) or applying for a collector license which would allow you to transfer more than one regulated item in a single month (etc).
Banned Weapons Database This is the entire searchable database containing all explicitly banned weapons. However, this is NOT A COMPLETE LIST of all possible banned weapons or their variants. For example, there may be a model of AR-15 that has a legal variant in MD, but also has a model variant of every other type of barrel that is illegal in MD. Each of those variant models is unlikely to be listed in the database. Instead, the base model will likely only be listed if all possible variants are illegal. Of course, self-made AR’s or AR parts will not appear on the list as well. Every pistol not listed on the pistol registry may not be listed in the banned weapons database. So for pistols, consider the fact a pistol is missing from the registry as indication it is not allowed in Maryland.
Therefore, the banned weapons database is merely a list of expressly banned weapons. You must also apply the “rules” listed below and in the legal statutes to determine if a firearm is legal to transfer or own in Maryland.
Maryland Legal Firearms
Rifles
- Heavy Barrel (HBAR) Only
- Only 1 of these allowed on same rifle at the same time
- folding stock
- grenade/flare launcher (37mm only as 40mm launchers not civilian legal on federal level)
- flash suppressor
- Overall length (OAL) of centerfire rifles MUST meet or exceed 29″ to be legal
- This means legal SBR’s under the NFA, with a tax stamp, are still illegal in MD if the overall length is less than 29″
- This length is calculated with the stock extended, and a permanently affixed muzzle device only.
- OAL rule does not apply to rimfire, but federal SBR rules DO apply to all smokeless powder guns.
- No fixed magazines exceeding 10 rounds
- No binary triggers
- No bump stocks
Handguns
- Explicitly approved firearms by model
- So called “copycats” are banned
- Internal magazines over 10 rounds like the P57 pistol are banned
- Starting January 1, 2027, Maryland bans the manufacture, sale, purchase, receipt and transfer of “machine gun convertible pistols” (striker-fired pistols with a cruciform trigger bar, like most Glocks). Pistols you already lawfully own are not banned from possession, and may still be transferred to immediate family members (SB 334, Chapter 771 of 2026; MSP will publish the list of affected models)
- Provided reason is that it is “too easy” to obtain an already-illegal switch to turn it full auto
- Never try to shoot a full auto handgun anyway – you won’t hit anything except for low-flying airplanes in the wrong place at the wrong time
- An identical handgun to a model on the roster will not be separately approved. If you have “Pistol X, Black UPC 123456-1” approved on the roster, but want to purchase “Pistol X, Grey UPC 123456-2”, you will often not find your variant specified on the list. That does not mean it is not approved.
- Pistols that are identical model, with identical barrel length, caliber, and design, but merely having a different pistol grip color, or different finish, or minor (purely cosmetic) modifications to presentation, are not all separately approved and explicitly listed on the roster.
- Whenever you have any doubt, ask your FFL to verify BEFORE you purchase it and ship it to your FFL.
Shotguns
- No revolving chamber (e.g. Street Sweepers)
- No semi-auto with a folding stock
- Pistol grip (e.g. bird head) shotguns without a stock are considered a grey area by the ATF as just “firearms” and if shorter than 26″ overall, “Any Other Weapon”
- Recommend you discuss this purchase/transfer/ownership with a gun-rights attorney who can guarantee the legality of a particular shotgun, or at least discuss a transfer with your FFL before purchase and transfer
- Internal magazine above 10 rounds may be owned
- Extremely rare; Only example I know is the Standard Manufacturing SSR
- Probably rare because it gets daaaaamn heavy (try a drum magazine on a shotgun on for size)
Lower Receivers
- Treated like a pistol if the receiver in question has any capability of being built into a pistol (e.g. all AR or 10/22 lowers)
- Regulated like a pistol, thus requiring most of the same process
- Does not require an HQL, though, unless you intend to build it into a pistol
- Building it into a pistol without an HQL is illegal
NFA Items
- NFA items require a tax stamp, which now is free as of 2026
- Still requires an approval and verification period
- Most sellers of NFA items will give you access to some toolset for applying for a tax stamp that is appropriate for the product you are purchasing
- NFA items include things like silencers/suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBR’s), short-barreled shotguns (SBS’s), grandfathered/dealer sample machine guns.
- An SBR is a smokeless-powder rifle with a barrel under 16″ (per ATF)
- An SBS is a smokeless-powder shotgun with a barrel under 18″ (per ATF)
- Being legal under federal law does NOT mean it is legal to own a weapon under state law
- e.g. A tax-stamped SBR with a length under 29″ is NOT legal in MD, unless it is rimfire
- e.g. A non-sbr, 16″+ barrel centerfire rifle is NOT legal in MD if it is under 29″ (think bullpups)
Magazines
External magazines are limited to 10 rounds if purchased in the state of Maryland. Whether you are ordering for delivery, buying at a brick-and-mortar, or buying/trading with a civilian, it is illegal to sell or take ownership of a magazine greater than 10 rounds within the state of Maryland.
But you can simply drive over the border to Pennsylvania or West Virginia and buy any magazine you want, and return with it to Maryland (Recommend you avoid Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia. Stick to Pennsylvania and West Virginia; Always confirm current laws there, though).
Additionally, you can receive a magazine as part of a weapon purchase from an FFL that is greater than 10 rounds. The FFL will be required to “pin” the magazine so that it can only accept 10 rounds. Any time you leave Maryland with that magazine, in West Virginia or Pennsylvania, you may remove the pin from the magazine to return it to its full capacity (if you are comfortable doing so yourself).
Internal/non-detachable magazines are limited to 10 rounds on pistols or rifles.
Note: It is NOT illegal for licensed FFL’s to take control of a magazine greater than 10 rounds. That is why an FFL can pin a magazine to transfer it when it has a designed capacity over 10 rounds. Active police are not restricted to all of the same rules as a civilian in Maryland, so JCM Armory can sell some restricted items to police, or sell MD-restricted items to people out of state. That is why you may see a number of MD-illegal items on our website. We apologize as we are not trying to tease you with things you cannot get here in Maryland. We understand the frustration. Sincerely!
General Notes
Machine Gun vs Volley Gun
A simultaneous-firing, double barreled shotgun or pepperbox pistol is NOT a machinegun.
A machine gun is multiple sequential shots from a single trigger pull. It is not multiple simultaneous shots from different barrels. This is called “volley fire”
The likely reason volley fire has remained legal, while fully automatic has been regulated, is likely due to the fact that adding more and more barrels to a single firearm greatly increases the weight of that weapon (along with the ammunition needed to feed many barrels in semi-automatic fire).
This makes higher caliber volley fire weapons extremely impractical as a mobile weapon platform, and extremely difficult to conceal
Out of state rejection – Do they not want my money?
Get ready for some hard-headed external-to-Maryland gun stores.
MD laws scare A LOT of other state’s stores away from bothering to deal with MD.
It will be surprisingly common that you are denied a sale of a COMPLETELY LEGAL gun from a store outside of Maryland.
Example Scenario: A store in Florida has a cool rifle with a 30 round mag that only they have at the perfect price.
You go to buy it. Maybe it somehow gets through the checkout process, but days later, they send an email saying they cancelled it.
Why? It was completely legal in Maryland… Because of the 30 round mag. They get advice from local lawyers, or no lawyers at all, and refuse to take a risk with Maryland’s extremely restrictive laws.
You are welcome to explain to them why they are wrong. They may not care. Please empathize with their reasoning as many sellers are not huge, and the people rejecting you might be the business owners. That is their entire livelihood and how they feed their family.
But feel free to refer them to your Maryland gun-literate lawyer who can legally provide them proof on your behalf. That will solve 90% of rejections if you have your lawyer assuage their concerns. Sometimes, though, the rule is strict and they won’t bend.
This example is the most common reason a gun sale will be denied to you. What they are not sure of is that it IS COMPLETELY LEGAL to sell a gun packaged with a magazine of over 10 rounds to a customer in MD. The legal onus is ENTIRELY on the FFL transferring the gun to you. We are the ones legally bound to pin a magazine so that the magazine can be legally transferred to you.
If for some reason we are unable to pin a magazine for you, in the worst-case scenario, we simply take the magazine and dispose of it. This is rare that we are unable to pin a magazine, but you should verify before transferring a weapon to an FFL.
If you transfer a weapon to JCM Armory with a magazine that we are unable to pin and transfer to you, please understand that there are only two options left. We must either withhold the magazine during the gun’s transfer or we must return the weapon to the seller.
Why might a magazine be unpinnable? It’s design requires destruction of the magazine to access the baseplate/spring (extremely unlikely on all modern weapons). Or the design of the magazine does not allow at all for pinning, such as the “Calico’s” helical magazine design. Though in that case, it is explicitly illegal in MD anyway. But who knows if someone else develops a helical magazine in the future.